#while letting his wife scheme for her own sons benefit

[like-sands-of-time]

Wait wait wait, explain it to me like im dumb (I am)

Viserys wanted, "needed", a son as his heir so there would be no question of succession. Sooo why was aegon 2 not immediately named his new heir? And if it's a matter of waiting a year or something to make sure he lives then fine, on his birthday? The king can change who his heir is as many times as he needs I presume, it's sort of his right as the top dude. Don't tell me he thought everyone was just cool with rhaenyra as future queen when nobody was cool with rhaenys, including the old king himself

I imagine he likely would have married his daughter to his son were they closer in age to eliminate that problem, but if he did that rhaenyra would have been almost too old to *start* having kids so with that NOT being an option doesn't she immediately take the same cast off position that eldest daughters and second sons do? Am I missing something lol

[silviakundera]

Now that the final SoKP episodes have passed thru my eyes... Things I miss from the novel:

* Sorry but Jiang Xuening should have killed You Fangyin's murderer with her own hands.

* Jiang Xuening becoming obsessed with Xie Wei's cooking, such that she loves to quietly hang out in the kitchen with him whenever there's a break in the scheming. It's their safe space.

* Jiang Xuening going from being in the palace and part of the target/victims of the rebellion in Life 1 to being one of the financial backers of it in Life 2 and accompanying their fighting forces as they move up through the country as Xie Wei outsmarts the emperor & Xue family & Lord Pingnan's forces at the same time. Spending her 2 years away building the capital needed to help spearhead the rescue of the princess and then go to fuck up the emperor who sent his sister a letter to end her life for the benefit of the country.... (chef's kiss)

* The glorious revolution and making the royal family kill each other to save themselves in order to demonstrate the type of people they are

* Jiang Xuening moving into Kunning Palace at the end, as basically the unofficial minister of finance. She ended up in the same place at the end, but hearts & minds are changed and so the result is different

* Jiang Xuening putting the pieces together that the princess died in the 1st life due to her pregnancy & the emperor cutting ties (intrigue!) Team Fuck The System helping her safely give birth to her son, who she loves despite his origin. Our fav lesbian never has to get married to another dude and can just chill with her son, the cabinet of ministers, and her Ning Ning (with psycho husband in tow, but hey nobody's perfect 😂). Using her power to spread schools for women's literacy with Xie Wei terrifying the detractors into submission.

* When they try to use the Jiang family in the capital to threaten XW and he's like, so what? I was gonna pay back those bastards next for Ning'er so you're saving me time lmaaaaaaoooo

* Speaking of which tbh I prefer the lack of a last ditch bandaid on the Jiang family relationship. She's let all of the pain of the past go and isn't personally seeking to take anything away from them in this life... but she is just done with it. Dad is nicer but he's let his wife behave like this and has been mostly hands off. Feels sorta like Story of Minglan to me - letting the favoritism & emotional abuse happen while playing nice guy. In both novel & drama, he spends years not protesting how Jiang Xuening is cast as the troublesome, uncouth, inferior model. But then the drama decides to rehabilitate them. (Though to be fair, even the drama was half-hearted on this 'wash', cause at the end she's mentioning they're not close and in the last scenes the parents are with the sister and Ning'er is with her found family.)

Improvements in the drama:

* I liked that we got to see Jiang Xuening tell multiple people that she loves XW before she gives him her answer. The angst of it being uncertain what conversations she's having with the princess & ZZ, the risk that she's going to abandon XW for being a hot mess... it made for good dramatic tension in the novel. But for the ROMANCE and creating a sense that the feelings he has are truly returned... It makes the ship better.

* The relationship that FL and ML had with the fake Xue Dingfei was richer. He was a standout for me.

* Yan Lin had a happier ending. He really stole my heart in this 2nd life and like Jiang Xuening I felt no need to see him haunted by his vile actions in another universe. It was emotionally satisfying in the drama to see him at peace. You got us all rooting for him.

* Consolidated the Lord Pingnan plot! We really didn't need to get into their factions and introduce more antagonists.

* Consolidated the You Fangyin romantic interests - no need for a marriage of convenience with 1 dude and then Xie Wei's buddy also carrying a torch.

* I felt like the drama gave Zhang Zhe more personality and I did find it delightful when he was "fighting" side by side with Xie Wei.

* Xue Shu (the Xue daughter) felt like a more developed, fully realized antagonist.

* As much as it "sings" in the narrative to have her end up in Kunning Palace with power in the government at the end of the novel (that was brilliant)... maybe emotionally it spoke to me more to see her initial wish from the start of her rebirth fulfilled. Her original reborn goal was to avoid reentering the palace & exit-out of everything to have a quiet life of peace. None of that power ever made her happy.

* Marriage scenes of the otp thank uuuuuuuuu

* No and actually.. After her royal marriage in the 1st life she definitely doesn't need another big celebration. And with her messed up family relationships and his dead parents... Them doing the marriage ceremony all on their own, cause it's another pact between them, makes a lot of sense and I dig it.

* The reverse callback of whispering while she's waiting for a kiss to say "I'm yours" instead of "get out" 👌👌👌

[dr-spencer-reids-queen]

Retaliation: Part One

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Female!Reader

Word Count: ~2.2k

Summary: Everyone can see just how much you're suffering, Spencer more than most. When he confesses to the team about your nightmares, Derek takes matters into his own hands.

Season Five Masterlist

Warnings: canon violence, canon language, canon talk of death, methods of kill

Author’s Note: I do not own anything from Criminal Minds. All credit goes to their respective owners. If there are any warnings that exceed the normal death/kills from the show, I will list them.

x

"Men are more ready to repay an injury than a benefit because gratitude is a burden and revenge a pleasure." - Tacitus

Dale Schrader was born on February 6, 1967. A lifelong criminal, he began a series of armed bank robberies throughout New York in 1994. He married a woman named Connie on August 17, 1995. On June 16, 1996, the two had a daughter whom they named Jenny, less than a year after the wedding. On May 5, 2001, Dale was sold out by Dan Otey, a fellow bank robber, and was arrested. 

Evidence of his involvement in the other robberies provided by Officer Joe Muller proved damning, and Dale was sentenced to fifteen years in a Lockport prison. While incarcerated, Dale proved to be a model prisoner, and due to good behavior, was released in only eleven years. 

While serving his sentence, Dale plotted an elaborate revenge scheme which he set into action two days after his release. He tracked down the home of Joe, having discerned that he and Otey were the ones who were responsible for his arrest.

At Joe's house, he abducted his wife and two sons at knifepoint, subsequently placing them in a crack house frequented by Stacy Ryan, the sister of a deceased former cellmate, and a group of fellow addicts whom he paid to keep an eye on the hostages. 

With Joe's family taken care of, Dale approached Joe outside a hardware store, showed him a picture and phone recording of his captive family, and blackmailed him into helping him acquire a key in police storage. What the key goes to, you have no clue.

Before getting the key, Dale decided to abduct his daughter to spite his now ex-wife, stabbing Ryan to death en route and dumping her body on the side of a road. Dale abducted Jenny while Connie was away from home and placed her in a cabin near the Canadian border. Jenny's abduction was what called in the BAU, who created a profile for him. 

That's why Derek is chasing Dale close to the middle of the night in the middle of the woods. Jenny wasn't hard to track down which caught Dale red-handed, and Derek wasn't going to let him get away.

"Don't move, Schrader!" Derek yells.

"Dale Schrader, you're under arrest for the murder of Stacy Ryan and the kidnapping of your daughter, Jenny."

Derek pulls him up by his cuffed hands and brings him to the police car that is by the cabin where Jenny is being held.

"Let me say goodbye to her," Dale pleads.

"You lost that right the minute you took her," Emily glares.

"She's my daughter! Jenny!"

Jenny looks frightened by him and coils into the police officer assigned to watch her.

"No, it's okay. He can't hurt you."

"Jenny, I'm sorry."

"Are you going to ride with her?" the officer asks Derek.

"Yeah, I got it. Jenny, listen to me. I promise you he's gonna go away for a long time. It's going to be alright."

Email shoves Dale into the back of the police car and approaches Derek who is talking to Jenny. She takes out her phone and calls Hotch to give him an update, Derek lets Jenny talk to her mom on the phone, and the police officer going to ride with Dale and Emily is canceling the Amber Alert put on Jenny.

Soon after, everyone leaves the cabin in their respective vehicles and heads down the mountain to get on the main highway. Emily is the first car in the group followed by the ambulance followed by the other police cars. Derek relaxes in his seat for the long ride ahead of them when he comes across a sight he never wants to see.

The car that held Emily, Bunting, and Dale crashed into the ditch on the side of the road. Emily is on the side of the road with cuts on her head but it doesn't look like Dale is anywhere near the scene.

"Pull over. That's one of us!" The ambulance pulls over and Derek jumps out before the car has a chance to stop completely. "Prentiss!!"

"What the hell happened?" she groans painfully.

"Are you okay?"

"I think. Bunting's down there. He's dead. Schrader's gone. It was a big truck. New York tags, Victor Alpha 737. They went northbound about ten minutes ago."

"That son of a bitch got away," Derek curses.

"He's got a partner," Emily winces.

You're stuck at the station with Rossie, Spencer, JJ, and Hotch. He took the time he needed off before returning to work. This will be his first case back since the funeral so you're not sure how this is going to go for him. Spencer looks at you and notices how distant you look. He hasn't had time to tell the team how you've been feeling since you got out of prison, and he needs to tell them soon, or else you're going to crash.

You haven't been sleeping well because every time you close your eyes, the nightmares come. They're not even about prison. The energy stuck to you makes you see all sorts of shit at night that you'd rather forget. Spencer looks at his hands and flexes them because he's gonna do something he hates doing. He reaches over to you and grabs your hand as a way to show you that you have his support.

You do something that tells him you're dying inside and need help.

You squeeze his hand without looking at him.

"The first case back, we won, and you'll be home for breakfast," Rossi smiles at Hotch.

"We never figured out why Schrader killed Stacy Ryan. She had no connection to his daughter or his ex-wife."

JJ walks into the office with the phone in her hand.

"There's been an accident. Emily's in the hospital and Bunting's dead."

"Is she alright?"

"She has a concussion. Morgan's with her right now going to the hospital. Schrader escaped the scene northbound in a truck with a partner."

"We need roadblocks now. Do we have a license plate number?"

"Emily remembered a partial."

"It's better than nothing," Rossi comments. "He could be headed to Canada. We need somebody who knows the area."

"I'll get an officer. I'll make sure Schrader's face is everywhere," she says and leaves.

"Schrader was a bank robber. Now he's murdered a woman, kidnapped his daughter, and killed a cop. He's obviously more sophisticated than we originally thought."

"He's got a bigger plan. It's not just about getting his daughter and fleeing the country. We never profiled that he'd have a partner. We don't know this guy at all."

With two agents down, the rest have to reinvent the profile since you never anticipated Schrader to have a partner in all of this. Why did he escalate from robbery to murder and kidnapping? What's his endgame?

"Alright, so Schrader pulled a series of bank heists in the 1990s. He was the only one to ever go away for the crimes. He was a model prisoner, only served eleven of his fifteen years. He was released early on good behavior, and any friends he had are either dead or still in prison," Spencer recaps.

"A three-ton truck was found north of the accident, not too far from Canada. We have the heaviest presence at border crossings. He probably knows that, but I don't think he's gonna sit still for long."

"He might have to depending on how injured he is," Spencer says.

"What do we know?"

"Dale Schrader went to prison for robbery. He was hands-off. All of his crimes were impersonal. Two days after he's released, he kills Stacy and kidnaps his daughter. It's both personal and emotional. It doesn't make any sense.

"When he's not attached to the crime, he pulls it off, but the minute he's invested, he lets his guard down and gets caught. It makes sense. He's not the hard-ass we thought he was."

"If Jenny was what he wanted, he had her. He could have left. He could have taken her to Canada. Why didn't he?

JJ comes back in with pictures in hand.

"Here are pictures from the accident."

It's not as bad as it could have been but you're still worried about Emily.

"Any word on Emily?" you ask.

"Apparently, she's arguing with the doctors," JJ chuckles.

"This took a lot to pull off. What if he's got a group of guys to call on? All those bank jobs were solo but this is a lot for one man to orchestrate."

"Have you figured out why he killed Stacy?" JJ asks.

"We haven't found any connection to Schrader, but she may be connected to the partner. Killing her might have been advance payment for breaking him out of custody."

Hotch calls Pen over video chat so everyone can hear what she has to say.

"Garcia, I need everything you've got on Stacy Ryan."

"She was a junkie. If she wasn't high, she was waiting to get high. The only thread I have between her and Schrader is that Stacy's brother spent time with Schrader upstate five years ago."

"Why would Schrader kill a junkie? It doesn't make sense. Where's the brother now?"

"Dead."

"It doesn't feel like Schrader does anything randomly. Stacy must have meant something to him."

"Yeah, but what?"

"Can you figure it out?"

"I'm on it," Penelope says and hangs up.

You're not completely here but you try your best to think about the current case. Schrader's partner saw everything that happened in the woods but he ran away and stole a truck. He knew Emily and Derek were taking that road back to the station which is why he waited for them and crashed into Emily when the moment was right.

This whole thing feels meticulous. If Schrader didn't need his partner for Jenny, then he must need him for something else. For what, you're not sure of. It doesn't make sense because Schrader had five years to plan all of this in prison. He should have had backup plans for his backup plans. He had more than enough time to escape over the border with Jenny before his ex-wife got home and realized she was missing.

Instead, he stayed local in that cabin. He had what he wanted. He could have run. Logically, there must be something else keeping him in Lockport.

One AM rolls around quicker than you'd hoped, and you yawn from how tired you've been. Not only do you need sleep but you're running only on caffeine and energy drinks. It's not healthy for you but you don't know what else to do.

"Schrader's face is all over the news," JJ says. "He's been on the run for almost two hours and we're no closer to catching him."

"We need to find the partner."

"Hey," Spencer says and everyone looks behind him to see Emily and Derek walking into the police station. "How are you feeling?"

"I feel like I got hit by a truck."

"Here, sit," JJ says and pulls out a chair for her.

"Thanks." Emily has Penelope on the phone and places her on speakerphone so everyone can hear her. "Garcia, tell everyone what you just told me."

"I have unearthed more of Schrader's past. What we do know is that he robbed fifteen banks in the state of New York in the nineties. However, what your resident glamour-puss smarty-pants just found out was that most of that money was never recovered."

"Where is it?" Spencer asks.

"My guess is that only he knows."

"That might be a good reason to stick around Lockport. The robbery that put him away should have been routine, right? What happened?"

"Maybe someone turned him in."

"I don't know. He kept to himself and always worked alone. Who'd turn him in? We're missing somebody. Garcia?"

"Yes, checking, sir. Records leading up to Schrader's arrest show this other bank robber named Dan Otey. He was looking at copious amounts of time, then he strikes a deal, and all of a sudden Schrader is arrested."

"It can't be a coincidence. You know, it's not uncommon for criminals to buy jobs off one another. Maybe that's what Schrader did but Dan Otey sold him out for a lesser sentence."

"It doesn't make sense. Otey was a rat and now he's the partner?" JJ shakes her head.

"You're right, Schrader wouldn't trust him. If anything, he'd want him dead."

"He'd probably use him first. He'd tell Otey that he owes him one and that he might save his life if he helps him get out of this jam."

"Where is he now, Garcia?" Hotch asks.

"Otey is a local. He lives off Route 7."

You get up from the table and head over to the coffee machines to pour yourself an extra strong cup. Spencer waits until you're in the other room before speaking up. This is his chance to tell everyone what's been going on with you.

"Okay, let's take a pause for a second. There's something going on with Y/N. Prison did something to her but she's pretending like everything is fine when I know it's not. I don't think she's been ready to come back. She's scared to go to sleep, she's crying all the time, and she is terrified. She keeps telling herself that she is fine but I know she'll crash sooner or later. It's not going to be pretty when it does."

"I noticed something was wrong on the last case we were on," Emily says. "She left one of the crime scenes and I found her outside begging for someone to help. It looked like she was locked in her own mind. I didn't want to say anything since it's none of my business but now that you put it out there, I had to say something."

"Let me handle her," Derek says. "Thanks for letting me know."

You come back with your coffee but don't notice how everyone is staring at you.

x

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[chaifootsteps]

Oh boy you're probably tired of the miraculous asks but: I don't think Marinette or Adrien are the 'creators pets', I honestly think that role goes to Gabriel (Adrien's father)

So, for context, Adrien's mom is dead/in a coma, and Gabriel is trying to bring her back using the Ladybug and Cat Noir miraculous (think Mr. Freeze from Batman situation), so, he starts off as a kind of sympathetic villain. However, as the show goes on and you learn more, it just gets worse.

Gabriel has

Constantly kept Adrien locked in the house to the point that he's most likely going to have problems making friends/keeping them/knowing how to interact with people his own age

Refused to let Adrien's friends throw him a birthday party and gets him the same gift every year for three years (a fucking pen)

Has destroyed Paris more than once due to the fact he wants miraculous

Has almost killed his own son due to his own schemes

Upon learning his son is Cat Noir, he doubles down on his plans and turned Adrien evil TWICE (one time actually destroyed the world)

This one just squicks me out but the fact he made these rings programed with an AI of his son and Lila that you can customize to the point of them being in their underwear (And please keep in mind both Adrien and Lila are only fourteen)

When Adrien loses a book (that Gabriel had another copy of) by accident, and despite Adrien’s clear remorse and feeling terrible about it, Gabriel still takes away Adrien’s freedom, confines him to the house, distances him from all of his friends and even distances himself even more from Adrien, acting angry and making Adrien even guiltier all to protect his Hawkmoth identity

And also during this, he destroys any pictures of Adrien plus a drawing Adrien made as a child. In front of Adrien himself.

Adrien is what's referred to as a "sentimonster" which, long story short, is a human (Or anything, really) made by the peacock miraculous and there's a thing that can literally control them, that being Gabriel's wedding ring, which he uses to control Adrien constantly.

And what does Gabriel get after all of this? His wish to be reunited with his wife in Heaven. Yeah his plans changed at some point and now he gets to be dead and happy with his dead wife while Adrien's an orphan now.

I dunno maybe I'm just more willing to give Marinette and Adrien the benefit of the doubt because they're both fourteen and teenagers are stupid, but Gabriel is a full ass adult.

[bbygirl-aemond]

what do you think would've happened if viserys had married laena instead of alicent?

ooh this is a interesting one, and i think i have a fairly hot take! even if rhaenyra eventually married laenor, the velaryons would have usurped rhaenyra, and she wouldn't have stood a chance against them. now hear me out!!

i'll point out some similarities between corlys and otto; explain why corlys didn't care about blood in canon but would in this hypothetical scenario; and finish with why rhaenyra would've been so much more screwed if they'd moved against her than she ever was fighting against the greens in canon.

first, let's get into corlys and otto, who i think are extremely similar in terms of being power-hungry men, obsessed with procuring their own legacy, with a ruthlessness that makes them take actions to achieve this goal even at the expense of their own family and morals. we see otto pimp his 14-year-old daughter, alicent, out to viserys, who is a literal grown man. but we also see corlys pimp his 12-year-old daughter, laena, out to viserys at the same time. both of them see their daughters as pawns and are fully willing to force them into being child brides for their own personal gain. we also see corlys insisting on supporting rhaenyra, even when he and rhaenys are certain that rhaenyra has not only cucked but killed their son laenor (we know the facts of the situation to be different, but they do not). corlys does this even though it greatly upsets his wife, not out of duty to rhaenyra, but out of professed self-interest: he does not care what rhaenyra has done to his family as long as someone with his last name ends up on the iron throne. first and foremost, corlys's sole priority is his own legacy, just like otto's.

now bella, you might say, why would corlys try to put laena's son on the throne instead of rhaenyra? in the show, he says that he cares more about names than blood. well, in the show, the two options corlys has are: rhaenyra, who will eventually put jace on the throne, who is not velaryon but has the last name velaryon; and aegon, who has neither velaryon blood nor name. i think it's easy for him to dismiss supporting aegon because his legacy won't benefit from doing so at all.

but what if it did? what if the alternative to rhaenyra was laena's son? what if corlys's own grandson was the firstborn son of the king? the whole reason corlys tried to marry laena to viserys was on the assumption that she might bear viserys a son, in the hopes that son would inherit. he clearly views such a possibility as worthwhile enough to sacrifice his daughter's innocence for. so instead of corlys choosing between preserving his name or losing any semblance of connection to the throne, we have corlys choosing between being connected to the throne by name or by blood. and i think there's a strong likelihood he'd make a different choice from what we see in canon.

now, rhaenyra would be smart to try to appease corlys down the line by betrothing baela and jace, just as she did in canon, because baela provides a way for corlys's bloodline to be tied to the throne, in addition to jace providing the velaryon name. but it's important to note that laena would have likely produced heirs for viserys long before rhaenyra ever married laenor. corlys would have begun scheming to have rhaenyra disinherited long before she would have ever been able to make this offer.

and corlys's schemes would bear fruit much faster and easier than otto's did. remember, while otto comes from a powerful house and has a strong political station, he is a second son and stands to inherit nothing. corlys is the head of house velaryon, and directly commands all of its resources in a way otto never had access to with his own house. corlys has much more political prestige; he has the ancient valyrian bloodline; he's basically the source of viserys's only naval power; he's much richer than house targaryen even is. and through rhaenys he wields his own dragon, one of the oldest and the fastest alive; we've seen that rhaenys would jump at the chance to support her daughter/granddaughters over rhaenyra's sons and she wouldn't hesitate to back him up with meleys. his desires carry so much more weight than otto's do.

if corlys demanded to viserys, after laena had a son, that he disinherit rhaenyra, i don't think viserys would have stood up to him the way he stood up to alicent and otto. i don't know that he could have afforded to from a political standpoint, for all his guilt over aemma's death. consider how even to alicent, even years into their marriage, he questioned whether he'd done the right thing by making rhaenyra heir. corlys would have seized upon that indecision while rhaenyra was still new to the position. he would have gotten her disinherited in favor of laena's son.

and after that, rhaenyra would have been seen as trying to usurp the throne if she'd made a move to be reinstated. her hands would also be tied, because she wouldn't be able to go against corlys: if she still had her bastards, it would be political suicide to risk angering him and losing the velaryon's support. if he accused her of going outside her marriage to laenor publicly, it would be her ruin. so i don't know that she would have been able to mobilize against him if she became old enough to feel slighted at being passed over. i also think that she wouldn't have fought for the throne nearly as hard if doing so would be going against viserys's wishes.

tldr: if corlys married laena to viserys, he would have pushed viserys into disinheriting rhaenyra long before rhaenyra ever got married herself. then, even if rhaenyra married laenor, he'd be able to blackmail her because of her bastards into never trying to take the throne from laena's son. rhaenyra also wouldn't have any traction if she was going against viserys's own decision.

[bridgertonbabe]

Violet meddles au: I think the children become aware that they’re being manipulated after the third marriage and resolve to stop her nefarious plans but when they hear how those plans are proceeding , they panic. We all know Bridgertons (especially the male ones) don’t think well when our under pressure.

Oh they're all well aware that their mother's manipulating them; they just can't prove it. And while some immediately fall into Violet's trap and things play out much to everyone's collective satisfaction, some of the siblings prove to be bigger hold-outs than others. Some are too stubborn to let themselves be bested by their mother - and some aren't as smart as they think they are and assume that Violet is purposefully trying to keep them apart from their respective lover, even though she's actually pulling their strings in making them buck up their ideas and make an honest man/woman out of their beau.

You'd have Anthony thinking he could simply disarm and convince the Bagwells and Mary Sharma into staying in Britain instead of leaving for India, but he is left perplexed by their insistence of their move to the other side of the world (little knowing that Mary, her youngest, and her son-in-law have no intention of moving whatsoever; they're in on the ruse Violet concocted and are sticking to it and letting Kate genuinely believe they're going to leave the country until the viscount gets his shit together).

Meanwhile Colin thinks his friends-with-benefits situation with Penelope will undoubtedly beat out her humouring Roger's courtship - so he's left flabbergasted when Penelope doesn't show up for a rendezvous and instead has a letter delivered to him. She informs him of her vested interest in his cousin's courtship, seeing as Roger wants to have a family just like her and he isn't embarrassed to be seen out in public with her. (Roger is in on Violet's scheming too, and while at times he wonders if he is genuinely leading Penelope on, he does observe the piercing gazes she exchanges with his Bridgerton cousin in the park and in ballrooms and he's quietly assured that it's only a matter of time before Colin finally pulls his head out of his arse and pushes him aside to ask the pretty redhead to be his wife.)

And as for Francesca she's fairly confident she doesn't even have to do anything to intervene in the suggested arranged marriage between Michael and her Rokesby cousin, Elizabeth. Michael had already professed his love for her and her alone and as much as he took on board his mother and aunt's advice, she was sure he would dismiss any notion of being married off to anyone that wasn't her. What she wasn't expecting, however, was to overhear Michael asking Helen and Janet if he could offer Elizabeth marriage via letter of if it would be politer to ask her in person. Francesca pulls him aside, asking what the hell he's playing at and reminding him that he's supposed to be madly in love with her, or so he keeps telling her. Michael wearily agrees that of course he loves her, but there's only so many times his heart can take having his marriage proposals rejected by her. He's tired of being used to Francesca's own advantage and has accepted that she'll never properly return his feelings; so he may as well move on and find a bride for himself instead of pinning all of his hopes on his late cousin's bride. (Helen and Janet, while in on the plan, at this point become anxious that this strategy isn't working as Michael is genuinely prepared to put the wheels in motion of asking Elizabeth Rokesby for her hand in marriage, and they fear Francesca will simply stand back and let it happen - though luckily Francesca bucks up her ideas enough to not just accept all of Michael's previous proposals but propose to him herself just to make it clear she's all in.)

[kinsey3furry300]

So how the heck do the Avengers pay for stuff, and how rich are they?

So, in the wake of “Falcon and the Winter Soldier” There’s a lot of debate about why Sam didn’t seem to get paid well for his work in the Avengers (at least in the MCU continuity), and this has got me thinking: we’ve got no evidence that the Avengers are, financially, anything but a hot mess. So lets break it down, Avenger by Avenger, using real-world pay scales for the ones who have jobs.

Tony: a billionaire, so clearly he’s a financial genius, right? Well….. his actions say otherwise. He’s shown to be wildly irresponsible with his money. He inherited a lot of wealth form his parents which was managed by the first Jarvis, Obadiah, and Pepper for him, he buys and then gives away not just woks of art, but entire collections by major 20th century artists on a whim, destroyed his own cars and home without concern, he tanks the value of his own company in the first Iron Man with a bad press interview, gets kicked of his own bord of directors, and ultimately, in Iron Man 2, gives control of his company to Pepper. He’s insanely rich, and insanely smart, but man, he’s not smart with his money. So all the cool stuff, his suits, the Avengers tower, the facility up-state: that’s all paid for by him, but Pepper is holding the purse-stings.  So, does he pay the others? We have no evidence for most of them… but we do with Spidey. Peter Parker is in the Stark Internship Program a euphemism to hide the fact he’s training and mentoring him as a super-hero, but I find the wording interesting: he refers to Spidey, his surrogate son and chosen heir, as an intern. I.E., Unpaid.  I’m guessing this is Howard’s influence over him, some sort of ‘make you own way in the world, son’ attitude, but  if he’s not paying Spidey, is he paying anyone else? He certainly pays for stuff super heroes suits and things, equipment, fuel, the base, but does he pay anyone a wage? No one ever mentions it. You think it would come up.

So, if he’s not paying them a wage, where do Avengers  (and thier allies) get their day-to-day money from, and are they rich? Using google and https://www.federalpay.org, lets find out.

Cap: Well, before Civil war, he’s a shield operative, and he presumably still holds his military rank: he’s a US Army captain, with (well) over 40 years service, so USD$88,142.40 per year, with $237.71  drill pay (pay per drill you have to do on weekends, on leave or outside of normal service) and $175.00 per month hazard pay (which I bet is interesting) on top of that. As a WW2 veteran, he’d be eligible for a war pension if he:

Was not discharged for dishonorable reasons; and,

Served 90 days of active military duty; and,

Served at least one day during wartime ("wartime" as determined by the VA); and,

Had  countable family income below a certain yearly limit; and,

Is  age 65 years or older; or

Regardless of age is permanently disabled, not due to wilful misconduct.

As he’s still receiving 90k per year, he’s ineligible for a pension as his countable yearly income is above the limit.  So if shield pays him in accordance with his rank and years of service, about $90, 600 per year incuding hazard pay.

After civil war, he’s a fugitive on the run, so presumably flat broke. I’d asume he gets his pension returened to him after the snap.

He’s also just gone from the 40’s to the present day, so 70 years of inflation probably makes buying things very confusing for him: everything would seem insanely expensive at first. He’d also not know what the correct prices are for anything invented after 45. You might get used to how much more expensive food and coffee is, but how much is a smart-phone worth? $200? $2000 $20000? Who knows? I bet the others have to facepalm a lot when he either refuses to pay for what he sees as clear price-gouging, and at the same time regularly pays insane amounts of money for goods and services because he doesn’t know better. He also has no known assets other than his pay: he rents an apartment making him one of the few American males in his age-group who isn’t a home-owner

Thor: Does Asgard even have currency? It’s depicted like a “Crystal spires and toga” type utopia with no poverty: even working class Asgardian’s like Scourge seem to be pretty well-off and want for nothing, so he’s from a post-scarcity society where actual magic is a thing. His “Another” coffee cup smashing and the fact he doesn’t have a computer of phone in Ragnarök might indicate that, no, he just doesn’t have, need or understand money. Splitting a bar tab with him must be a nightmare. His breakdown post snap indicates he’s got some cash, but not a huge amount, and is probably skiving of Valkyrie and the other Asgardians.

Banner: Okay, so a PhD could make you a lot of money from patents… in pharmacology or engineering. Theoretical physics? Not so good. And if Banner did have any patents, they’ve probably been seized under eminent domain by the US military.  At the start of The Hulk film, he’s working a entry-level factory job at a botteling plant in Brazil. The minimum wage in Brazil is 1069.62 Real per month, that’s 12,835.44 Real per year, or around $2437.79 US per year, before everything goes wrong for him! He then runs off to India, works for Tony for a bit and then gets shot into space. Spidey may actually make more in allowance than Banner does, and Banner is a gown ass man with bills to pay: I’d imagine he loses a lot in ripped clothing.

Natasha and Barton: Pre Civil-war, both are government spooks, so how well does that pay? The salaries of CIA Intelligence Analysts based in the US range from $25,838 to $685,701 , with a median salary of $125,340, so let’s assume that Shield pays in a similar range: $685,701 per year for Director Fury, around 125,000 for Natasha and Cliff, which explains Cliff’s nice, middle-class mid-western home. Post civil war, presumably not great: we know that Natasha spends a lot of her savings running and hiding all across the world, and Cliff takes a deal and presumably lives of his savings, pension and his wife’s income.

Rhodes: Full USAF colonel with over 10 years service? $105,562.80 per year, plus $293.23 drill pay per drill and $175 per month hazard pay, and because he’s team Stark and not Team Cap in Civil War, he’d not lose any of that. He presumably also gets an injury pay-out after his accident. After T’challa and Stark, he might be the best paid avenger.

Dr Strange: spends all his money he made as a surgeon on trying to cure his hands: spends literally his last dollars heading to Nepal to train. Wong even jokes with him about their lack of worldly money when asking for a tuna-melt. But, can use illusion to make people think he has money, and his home and clothes etc. come with the job, so in the same boat as Thor in that he has no money, but needs none AKA, he’s a bastard to try and split a restaurant bill with.

Wanda and Vision: No know source of income, just sort of live in Tony’s hose and eat his food, and on top of that Wanda goes on the run after civil war… yet they can stay in fancy hotels in Edinburgh, a relatively expensive city, and Vison apparently bought them a house to retire in, so one of them has some source of money. Maybe Tony gave Vision years of back-pay form when he was still Jarvis, or maybe the vison has a day job, which is, frankly, hilarious. Could you imagine him as a barista? I can, and it makes me very happy.

Scott Lang: I’d assumed he’d be super, super broke, but apparently the average pay for a private security consultant in the Bay area is $85,430 per year. Not bad. Pity he gets sucked into the quantum realm just as his business is taking off, so presumably, flat broke again.

Bucky: no known income, and I doubt Hydra paid him for being the Winter Soldier so he probably has no savings, but he should, technically, qualify for a military pension. As a single veteran, he’d be  eligible for federal tax-free pension of up to $1732 per month, or $20,784 tax free per year. Not much for someone who lives in NYC. He may also be eligible for medical benefits over the loss of his arm. Whether or not he got to see any of that money given how confused his life has been over the past 10 years is unclear, but on paper he’s eligible.

T’challa: He is, quite possibly, richer than Stark, and as an absolute monarch pays no tax and has access to his Nation’s vast wealth in vibanium. It’s good to be the king!

Captain Marvel: USAF captain, and a test pilot; the test pilot school only accepts applicants with a service length of less than 9 years 6 months (10 years six moths of helicopters) as they don’t want older applicants. With 8 years service, $79,538.40, plus drill pay and hazard.  However, no know (human) pay since 1990. Flat broke.

Guardians of the Galaxy: no data, but I’m assuming “Cowboy Bebop” levels of perpetual never-ending poverty given the way they choose to live. I’d also assume Rocket has taken all their cash into some sort of Ponzi scheme of his own creation, because just look at him, of course he has.

Spidey: he’s got about $10 of his aunts’ money at any given time, so he can buy lunch… which may in fact be more than Banner or Lang, and we know it’s more that Strange or Thor.

 So, here the big one: how rich or how broke is Sam?

Sam Wilson: annoyingly, we’re not directly told what rank Sam held in any MCU film. USAF pararescue “Maroon berets” are generally NCO’s (but there’ are officer-ranked pararescue) , and he’s seen working on his wings at one point, where as officers don’t generally work on or maintain airframes. He’s shown wearing a Nation Air guard grey while jogging at one point to confuse the matter further. The general consensus on redit is he’s a former USAF tech sergeant (E-6). But how long was he in the air force? With six years service (the minimum sensible time he could have served to work in pararescue based on his age), that would be $41,464.80 per year, plus drill pay and hazard. As Anthony Mackie, the actor that plays him, was 36 as of Civil War, and assuming the character is the same age, and assuming he retired from the air force that year, and he joined the USAF at 17, the youngest you can join, he’d have served 19 years, giving him a pay of $51,566.40, the maximum pay you can get at this rank before promotion to Master Sergent,  but meaning he left just before he’d qualify for the 50% final salary pension you’d qualify for after 20 years. Which seems weird. So let’s assume the character is one year older than the actor that plays him and served 20 years (ages 17-37), that means Sam has a military pension of $25,783.20 per year (20,784 of it tax-free), plus any injury benefits. He councils other veterans, but doesn’t get paid for that. He also chooses Team Cap in Civil War, so would become a wanted criminal, and so lose his income between 2016 and 2018, and then gets snapped and has no income for 5 years, which would destroy his credit rating. Like the rest of Team Cap, he presumably gets his post snap pardon, and goes to work for the US government at his former pay and rank. However, given how Captain John Walker treats him as an equal, it’s possible he’s been promoted to a captain when the  hired back, giving him a pay of between $54,176.40 to $88,142.40 (with 20 years experience, depending on if they take into account his prior service or not, and how much prior service he has), but either way, he’s just starting this as a new job after being legally dead for 5 years: no savings, and no credit.

Commercial fishing vessels cost about 10% of their total value per year in maintenance alone. I can’t identify what sort of boat the Wilson’s have, but some quick googling indicates that the cheapest  15m long wooden in-shore shrimp trawler costs around $140,000, so that’s $14,000 per year in maintenance costs alone, minimum. And that’s a lower estimate, assuming the rest of the business is sound, which we know it isn’t.

So, in concussion, yes, Sam is in some serious financial trouble until he can re-build his savings and credit, but the scary bit is he’s not alone in that: he’s probably better off than Lang, Banner, Danvers, Strange, Thor, Bucky, Wanda and Parker. Only Clint (if he gets a full pardon and gets his full pension), Rhodes, Stark and T’challa aren’t in some sort of potential financial problems. That asshole bank teller was right: despite the fact it seems to pay well on paper, with a few exceptions, the Avengers financials are probibaly a mess. EDIT: Rocket is running the Ponzi scheme, if that’s not clear from context. The others know they have money somewhere, but not where it’s gone. And It’s been pointed out to me that as he’s technically a POW while he’s the Winter Soldier, Bucky is owed over 70 years back-pay, equal to over 3 million dollars, details in the notes.

[plan-d-to-i]

What's your opinion on JYL and JFM? I've seen a few say they were just as bad to WWX for not doing much to defend him, especially against Madam Yu, or like when JYL apologized to the Jins on his behalf.

I think the novel doesn't mean them to be seen as bad people just weak. I think I'm more defensive of JFM because fandom is really hard on him, while he was stuck in a terrible situation himself with his wife. The only way you can come out on top w YZY is to never fucking interact w her. To never marry her in the first place ideally. And he tried!

He didn’t like Yu ZiYuan’s conduct and felt that the two wouldn’t be an appropriate match. He had politely refused the offer a handful of times. However, the MeishanYu Sect set about multiple factors, putting pressure on Jiang FengMian, who was at the time still fairly young and had nothing to lean on. Along with the fact that, not long later, ZangSe SanRen had become cultivation partners with the most loyal servant at Jiang FengMian’s side, Wei ChangZe, and rode off into the sunset, roaming around the world, Jiang FengMian finally gave up.

Meishan Yu literally schemed behind the scenes to force JFM to marry this bitch so rip JFM you really pulled the short straw in life. Once he married she's not the type of person he can tell what to do.

Madam Yu, “What am I doing here? What a joke that I am asked of such a thing! Sect Leader Jiang, do you still remember that I’m also the leader of Lotus Pier? Do you still remember that every inch of the earth here is my territory? (Chapter 56)

Much like how JGS can't stop Madam Jin from beating the shit out of JGY... JFM tries to end WWX's punishments early, but he's doesn't seem capable of banning YZY from punishing him entirely. Although JFM is kind to WWX I don't see any favoritism. Correcting jc's behavior when it's wrong is not in fact showing favoritism towards WWX. & ultimately as WWX concludes later on regarding the Wen sibs:

Just as Wen Qing said, if Wen Chao truly wanted to kill anyone, it was unlikely for Wen Qing to be able to stop him. Perhaps she’d be affected as well. After all, children of others could never compare to children of one’s own.” (Chapter 60)

No matter how much he likes WWX, WWX is not his own son. JFM's last interaction with WWX is to ask him to care for jc.

As for YanLi I wrote about her more at length here. I think a lot of ppl in this fandom project really hard on her, so they get very defensive over what is a kindly but mediocre person who benefits from a heaping helping of privilege and WWX's rosy view. To be clear I don't think you're supposed to hate her in the novel. I think she's forgettable. The person who didn't quite catch WWX when he jumped from the tree. The mother of Jin Ling and the person who consistently showed WWX some crumbs of warmth in the Jiang household.

It's this fandom that made her into a soup goddess of goodness lmao. Personally I think it's absurd when they act like YanLi's not responsible for her own ignorance or choices. Like someone locked her in the attic and she didn't know what money or war refugees were. They try to blame the society she was raised in for why her ass only knew how to make soup and it's like... Her mother is YZY. Can't stand YZY but there's no way in hell she wanted her daughter making soup and not training or educating herself. Or that JFM was tyrannical and wouldn't let her do what she wanted. All this to say it's YanLi's own flipping choice to stay not knowing. So she'll always fall short in my eyes, compared to Wen Qing or Mianmian. And again people act like she was so helpless and no one would let her speak, yet:

“Jin ZiXun’s face was dark, but he didn’t respond. There were two reasons. First, he had never seen Jiang YanLi step up and talk before, so he didn’t know how strong his reply should be. Both Madam Jin and Jiang Cheng held Jiang YanLi in high regard, and he didn’t dare rashly go against them." (Chapter 73)

“The people who gathered around Jin ZiXun had on the same dark faces as he did. Yet, taking into consideration Jiang YanLi’s background, they didn’t dare talk back to her directly.” (Chapter 73)

“If the one currently saying these words wasn’t Jiang YanLi and instead some random person, Jin ZiXun would probably have come at them with a slap already. His face was almost black, but he kept his mouth shut.” (Chapter 73)

Ahhhh... look at all that privilege. No one reprimands YanLi for speaking up. Sharp fucking contrast to Mianmian. YanLi just doesn't want to speak up. She wants her wedding to go off without a hitch. She wants WWX to exclaim over her pretty dress and play nice with jiang cheng and probably stop w his foolishness w the Wen Remnants. Ig she thinks the mental image of her in her wedding dress will be much more filling than meals or funds. Ironically when jc, WWX & the other disciples were headed to the Wen indoctrination camp she loaded them w snacks, so maybe she gets how supplies work. She just didn't think WWX would need any when he was possibly starving on the corpse filled mountain.

Jiang YanLi saw them off, staying with them road after road. She filled everyone’s arms with all sorts of snacks, afraid that they’d starve at the QishanWen Sect. Clothes brimming with food, the twenty boys set off from Lotus Pier. (Chapter 51).

guess she's not sheltered enough to not understand how starving works... interesting. Luckily it's not my eyes she's being judged through and WWX certainly remembers her fondly. However he's not wracked with guilt about her death as fandom often portrays him- and rightly so bc it was her own harebrained ass that stumbled on a battlefield unarmed, and untrained and asked the guy everyone was attacking to stop fighting.

[postmodernmulticoloredcloak]

So I watched 10.09 recently, and it has that part where Dean tells a story about him basically being almost roofied as a teen, but somehow it ends up framed as the funny joke and yet another proof that John "did what he could", and I kind of hate this? And it's the same episode in which MoC!Dean killed guys that kidnapped and tried to rape Claire, and you'd think writers would've addressed the parallels and acknowledge that Dean could've been triggered by this situation. 1/2

2/2 But in the end, it's never addressed, and the whole situation is framed as the proof that Dean is evil now. And I'm not even sure what I am trying to say, but with that being the show's approach back in s10, I'm not surprised about the finale anymore. Guess we should've known?

That’s an excellent angle to look at the issue because the Mark of Cain arc is a clear example of how people with different experiences will see the same thing in wildly different ways. There’s this phase of season 10 where everyone is like “oh no Dean is Getting Worse” and when you look at what Dean is doing... you actually go “...good for him”.

Let’s give Caesar what belongs to Caesar. It’s not “the writers” in this case, it’s Dabb. Plenty of other writers don’t fall into this John apologism thing. Just look at how the episode before Lebanon, written by Buckner and Ross Leming, says that sometimes John would temporarily kick Dean out because he was “pissed at him” despite Dean always taking his side to mantain the peace. It almost seems like a statement to sprinkle some salt given what Dabb does in Lebanon, you know? Maybe not, but there is a tension between “John was shitty” writers and “John did his best” writers.

In hindsight, we gave Dabb too much of the benefit of the doubt. We were like, weeell, that’s supposed to be way the characters perceive the truth, which is distorted by the trauma... But now it’s obvious that he truly believed in the John-did-his-best version. He brought him back and got Mary back with him. No matter what happened to the finale, the network didn’t print those pictures of John and Mary to hang on Sam’s wall. He never took Dean’s abuse seriously and it shows.

The “anedocte” of Dean getting drugged and “saved” by John from being raped is obviously there to parallel him with Claire. Which works! It’s so weird because it’s like. You are soooo close to getting the point. Younger Dean was assaulted just like this teenage girl is assaulted and Dean saves her... but apparently John yelling at those people is a good way of dealing with the issue, while murdering child traffickers is an overraction thus bad.

That’s the problem, isn’t it? That Dean’s murder spree is framed as an overreaction. Sam is like “tell me you had to do this! tell me it was you or them!” - the answer to which (by the narrative) is obviously no, it wasn’t self defense, he just killed them because he could. He just murdered those men for no reason except he felt like being murdery. And the audience is supposed to be like “oh no! Dean is murdery for no reason except for murderiness! That’s bad!”.

But it’s a power fantasy, isn’t it? Going on a murder spree on rapists and traffickers. I bet any people who’s been violated like that has fantasized of doing the exact thing Dean does here. Killing them all.

Dean had the physical strength and skill to kill them all, why shouldn’t he kill them? (I mean, in real life I’m against private justice because I’m a fan of the state of law, but the Supernatural universe obviously works on different principles than the state of law. Again, it’s a fictional narrative that plays out as a fantasy for the audience, so.)

So what was Dabb’s intention? I’m afraid it’s the worst one. “John Winchester’s not going to win any Number One Dad awards, you know? But, you know, damn if he wasn’t there when we needed him”. What the fuck, Dabb? It’s been established since season 1 that John WASN’T there when they needed him. Which... I’m afraid... leads us to the Cas-Claire plot in the episode. Cas has fucked off with Jimmy’s body leaving Claire on her own. Parallels how John wasn’t going to win wny Number One Dad awards. But! Cas is there when Claire Really Needs Him i.e. when she’s about to be raped by older men. Parallels how John was there when Dean Really Needed Him i.e. when he was about to be raped by older men.

I think the point is to say, Cas kinda sucked because he took Claire’s dad away but hey! He’s actually a good figure for Claire because he gets there in time to prevent her from being raped. Just like (ew) John kinda sucked as a father because hunting and stuff, but hey! He’s actually a good figure for Dean because he got there in time to prevent him from being raped.

It’s pretty yucky. Literally NOBODY wanted a parallel between Cas and John. But he made one. And he made one to absolve Cas from the guilt he carried for what he did to Claire (Claire’s mother is a mother so who fucking cares about her. She’s basically a Blurry Wife(TM), she’s only a tool for Claire’s arc, Cas apparently only cares about the harm he did the child, not the wife, for some reason.) and to absolve Cas from his guilt it absolves John too. Don’t worry, being a parent is hard. You often screw up. But you can *looks at smudged writing on hand* prevent the kid from being raped by predatory adults and everything’s fine now.

It’s not really important if the child suffered hunger or whatever, the only important thing is that they don’t get raped, because that’s bad, everything else is just a little detail.

All Dabb got with that scene was to paint Sam as extremely unsympathetic because he’s no longer a child, he’s a full adult now and still thinks of that episode at the CBGB as a funny story. That’s not a good look. It almost makes you think that the writer himself saw it as a funny story. Lol teenage boy biting more than he can chew. But then why the Claire parallel? The Claire scene onviously is not supposed to be anything but horrific. I'll give Dabb the benefit of the doubt on this specific thing.

It’s weird, yes, because Dabb wrote Dark Side of the Moon where he establishes that John was a bad husband/father even before tragedy hit the family. But apparently that’s the “not going to win any Number One Dad awards” part, I suppose? I guess he intended to write John as this flawed, ~complex~ figure who was imperfect but still brave and whatever blah blah did his best blah blah. I’m all for flawed complicated characters but a horrible father is a horrible father. A rose by any other name... parental abuse is still parental abuse even if the poor guy was complicated and traumatized and did what he thought he had to do to prepare his sons for a violent world.

Also, the story frames Dean’s escapade as a teenager being stupid. “You know what he got for that? Me whining about how much he embarrassed me. Me telling him that I hated him. But then he stopped and turned around looked at me and said, Son, you don’t like me? That’s fine. It’s not my job to be liked.” “It’s my job to raise you right.” This seems straight from a novel about teenagers doing something stupid that they’re too young to realize that their parents are right to be against them doing. But this isn’t just... a parent walking into a bar to stop their child to drink alcohol. Dean literally describes feeling sick from something that was inside the alcohol.

Sure, it makes sense that he’d lash out to John because of the shame and shock. But the scene is... off. Are we supposed to see this as a typical teenage mistake? Are we supposed to read it as something as horrific as what happened to Claire, literally sold into rape? Or, worse, are we supposed to see what happened to Claire as a teenage mistake, ah silly teenager, blindly trusting shady people, no wonder you end up in a situation where you’d get raped if a father figure didn’t sweep in and save you. I hope that wasn’t the intent.

To get back to Dean’s Mark-of-Cain violence, the writers clearly didn’t intend it to come from the Darkness up to a certain point. It was supposed to an arc about your own inner darkness (consider the Charlie episode, a couple episodes later). Then they came up with the idea of The(TM) Darkness, the suppressed cosmic feminine. While it caused a bit of dissonance in the subtext, it doesn’t really change Dean’s narrative, because his inner darkness is the trauma, and his trauma is inherebtly tied to the “feminine” i.e. the parts of him that don’t fit seamlessly into the scheme of toxic masculinity values. That the violence that comes from the Mark of Cain comes from Dean himself and that’s it, or is connected to the Darkness, it doesn’t change what it means for Dean. Dean and Amara have parallel histories, the feminine principle locked away, the trauma the anger stems from.

In 10x09 we’re still in the Before The (TM) Darkness era, before the suppressed cosmic feminine. The Mark of Cain arc is still about... well, Cain. But the shift is the signal that someone looked at Dean’s arc and said... you know what? “Lucifer gave me this curse so now I’m demonic and murdery” is meh. “Toxic masculinity suppresses the feminine and it creates trauma which rage and violence comes from” is more interesting. I don’t know whose idea it was, but it was a good idea, and surely the idea came from seeing how Dean’s MoC narrative was unfolding.

Dean’s MoC narrative was unfolding in a certain way, in fact, because of a pretty simple reason. There’s a fundamental tension in Dean’s MoC arc. We want him to go murdery, but it’s also our main character, so we don’t want him to do really horrible things because he still needs to be relatable. The audience cannot hate him, so he must NOT do something entirely unforgivable. He still needs to be somewhat relatable, even when demonic or demonic-adjacent.

So he goes on a murder spree... but it’s rapists and child traffickers. He’s demon, but he kills a misogynistic dude that wanted his wife dead for cheating on him. He’s a demon, but beats up dudes that harass women. He does a slaughter, but they’re nazi. He’s off the deep end, but works a case of kidnapped and abused young women...

Speaking of which. 10x23, written by Jeremy Carver. Dean works a case where a girl was killed while dressed scantily and Dean makes some slut-shaming remarks, and we’re supposed to think “whoa Dean, that’s bad”. But later he confronts the girl’s father and what does he say?

I’m just doing my job, Mr. McKinley.

By suggesting my daughter was a slut?

I’ll admit that thought crossed my mind. Then I came here, and I smelled the deceit and the beatings and the shame that pervade this home.

You shut your face right now.

And you know what? I don’t blame Rose anymore. No wonder she put on that skank outfit and went out there looking for validation, right into the arms of the monster that killed her.

Back then the episode was super controversial and everyone hated the case because of the apparent slut-shaming but I loved it! Because it’s not about the girl. It’s about Dean. Dean doesn’t think that a girl gets killed because she dresses in a miniskirt so it’s her fault. Dean is projecting on himself and he’s not actually victim blaming the girl, he’s victim blaming himself. And when he absolves the girl by putting the blame on the father... well, subtextually he’s absolving himself by putting the blame on his father. On the deceit and the beatings and the shame that pervaded his own home. He’s textually not ready to absolve himself, of course, he summons Death to ask him to kill him later, but subtextually he’s on the right path.

Rose McKinley basically did the same mistake Dean did at the CBGB when he trusted some older people who offered him drinks and the same mistake Claire did when she trusted a man who sold her for money because he offered him a place and stability. She trusted the wrong people (in this case, vampires, which adds the whole subtext of vampires and sexuality) who took advantage of her. Except Rose had no one to save her. (Her friend, Crystal, gets rescued by Dean, even if he causes the other hunter Rudy to die in the process.)

Carver’s writing is pretty brutal. The girl made that mistake because was abused at home, so she was desperate for validation and that desperation drove her into the wrong hands. (Rose even has a brother who blames himself for bringing her sister to her future murderers, destructive sibling relationship check.) It doesn’t actually even matter if Dean guessed right about Rose’s family situation, because what matters is what it tells us about Dean. He basically relates to a dead abused girl. Actually all through the season Dean is paralleled to “skanks” “sluts” and sex workers. Obviously this happens kinda all through the show, the whole “the business is based on absent fathers” thing happened much earlier in the story, so it’s not new. But s10 draws a picture of female suffering - abuse, manipulation and death. Season 10 was difficult to go through. In hindsight, it was probably on purpose because it was supposed to be darkest hour of the feminine. Summed with some good old fashioned misogyny, but hey.

The Carver era was wonky but Carver wanted to free the feminine. (I believe that Mary’s comeback, while written by Dabb because of the showrunner shift, was planned before the showrunner shift.) We thought the Dabb era wanted the same, with Mary choosing life and Amara being independent and so on, but it evidently wasn’t the case. Not a single woman arrives at end of the story. It’s hardly ~Bucklemming or ~the network or ~covid because it starts before the very end.

I’m not saying that dead sluts are more feminist than living women, but if the women die or disappear anyway (and they did) I’d rather have an exploration of trauma than nothing. And I definitely prefer a dead slut narrative that calls out parental abuse than a narrative where women live but abuse gets the you-did-your-best treatment.

Whoops! I digressed! But feel free to ask for any clarification or send me any observation or thought.

[kitsunesfandomtime]

Bird Cage

Pairing: Inko X All for One (Former), Izuku & All for One as a father son pair(It gets creepy)

Genre: General, Angst, Manipulation, Vault Time to raise a kid

Summary:

When Izuku was very young his mother died and his father took him away to a home with no doors or windows. But a courtyard and anything he could ever want while he's made to dress up. Everything except a chance to be a hero.

So he finally asked his father at the age of twelve when seemed there was no end to this isolation. Fully expecting to be rejected but instead his father accepts his desire to go to school under three conditions.

1. Follow his training regime. 2. Report everything to him. 3. Stay out of trouble.That shouldn't be too hard... Right?

When they had married each other it had been with love and affection in their hearts. Entwined with a promise to love their children and when they had their son, it had been a blessing. Hisashi cried with joy when he held his son in their arms. It wasn't a trick or a scheme; it was simply his love for his son... But the world was cruel.  Criminal. Wretches and hypocrites still lived in this world. He had forgotten but as he stands at the grave of his wife with his toddler.  The love for a family and his wife had softened him. Then the world decided to remind him that there was no rest for the wicked. Taking her away in an accident leading to her death on the one day he watched over their son. Mitsuki and Masaru tried to talk to him, to 'comfort' him at the funeral, but he could no longer feign politeness.  "I'm so sorry you have me as a father," he whispers to his small child of four. Those eyes looked at him so innocently unaware of what he meant. Those emerald-colored eyes still held a glassy tinge to them as they stood outside at their mother's grave. Hisashi can't afford to lose him too.  So he creates his new home, a tower with no doors for his son to leave, nor could intruders enter. In an area that was safe and secure without standing out. He learned enough about his failure with Yoichi to know that depriving his son of any outdoor interaction wouldn't do him well.  It had an 'outside' bit for gardening and nature in the center, like a courtyard, though nothing could just come from above. A kind of 'green house' glass can't be seen having taken the technology from I-Island. It was strong and nothing could just charge in. Yet it still allowed the sun to let his son feel its warm light.  A fridge, a TV, a computer, video games, comic books, everything was there. It wasn't simply a singular room where his son would get stir crazy. It was a home for his son to grow up with him, safe and sound, with tons of space and things to do.  However, there were some 'benefits' to this secluded location. As he always wanted to dress his boy up but didn't wish to be the cause of ridicule. His son now could wear whatever since it isn't like anyone would ever see him besides his own father.  Shawls and jewelry adorn his son's body. Even getting him an ear pierced to wear some cute earrings. Of course, he asked after showing him some really cool and cute ones. Foreign garments and exotic designs that any little kid would get excited to try. Now he can enjoy himself without worries.  His son grew up safe and secure from the world. All he would know would be from him, and it is not as if All for One needs to be out there to work.  That is what Tomura was for. He could easily talk to him through a monitor and that was what he planned to do... It just seemed like his son was lonely.  "Dad, I want to play with Kacchan."  Izuku hadn't fussed much at first. In fact, he had tried hard not to cry too much after his mother's death. He tried to be strong during the move as his father adjusted to working at home to watch him more. But his dad could never fully replace having a friend.  "You can't play with Kacchan. We've moved remember? He isn't around anymore," he says calmly as he looks at his son.  "Oh..." Izuku's voice trailed off at those words, and the silence hung very heavy in the air. It has been a few months, and despite his attempts to make his son happy and comfortable, it's clear he misses company. Izuku's eyes seemed to dim and his lips pursed as his hands began to play with the end of his silk shirt. Wrinkling it, but All for One doesn't stop him.  "... Mom... Mom would have probably encouraged me to make friends. She didn't think it was good to be lonely," the small boy muttered. Memories of Inko encouraging him to go outside and make friends saying how being cooped up isn't healthy. Like a stab to the heart, even the great Demon Lord had to take a sharp breath.  "I... See. Don't worry you will have a friend; it is just we need time," it was a promise that he knows he will have to keep. He wasn't about to pick up Katsuki as that boy had too much bite. He was much too smart and dangerous to be a good playmate since he would likely 'encourage' the boy to try and leave.  "Just give me some time, I'll play with you, alright? Oh, I have some new outfits we can try, they just came in" Hisashi offers as a diversion from this topic. To distract from the loneliness the boy was feeling and to focus on his father.  "An outfit? Sure, but can we play heroes and villains after?" Izuku chirps up as was picked up by his father. Hisashi smiles at his son's innocence as he looks into those dark green eyes.  "Sure we can. Let us play for as long as you want after," he coos against his son's head. Knowing it will be hard to adjust, but he will make sure he is happy... -------  Izuku is six years old and still hasn't seen another child his age.  His father didn't get him a human friend, but he did give him a 'pet' that was easy to care for. His father explained how he asked his friend to help him find the perfect pet.  It had soft black fur, though also plating on its head that seemed to cover something. It had many quirks like regeneration, shock absorption, and of course the endurance quirk. Not that Izuku could understand how, and his dad didn't really explain why it had so many quirks.  Only that this is the perfect companion for him. The rabbit didn't fuss in his arms despite him struggling to carry the fluffy thing.  "Do you like him?" His father asks him as Izuku holds the rabbit in his arm. This rabbit was definitely bigger than most rabbits Izuku saw on TV or in books, almost like a medium-sized dog. Its dark fur covered its body besides the plating on its head, which his father explained how it got into an accident.  "He's so soft," he whispers softly, allowing his hand to sink into the rabbit's fur as its nose twitched. It looked up at him with green eyes, and though there weren't a lot of thoughts running through its brain, it perked up. As if in recognition before it gently leans up to give him a 'kiss' on the arm.  "I love him," Izuku coos softly as he hugs the small thing nuzzling him against his chest. "I'm going to name him... U."  His father's expression scrunches up in confusion, "Um what's his name?"  "No U like Usagi but just the first part!" Izuku piped. It also reminded him of how in the Japanese Zodiac it is usually shorthand to that. This rabbit looked ethereal with those green eyes, so wanted to call it something unique.  "U, alright, then his name will be U," his father seemed pleased at the name his son chose. It definitely is a bit odd, but if that is the name his son wants, he wasn't going to fuss clearly.  "Come on U, let's go outside." Izuku piped as goes outside to the courtyard, leaving his father behind. Leaving the man to feel like he just got abandoned for a rabbit.  Of course, any child would choose a pet over hanging out with their father. Especially when said pet is a giant rabbit that can jump over you and is a lot more active than a normal rabbit.  Izuku was pretty happy with this and could forget about his large beautiful cage. At least for a little while. -------  Izuku is 12 years old. It has been six years since they moved into this doorless house, and the lack of humans beyond his father's company is hard to ignore.  He had gained enough self-awareness to notice there were no doors that lead outside. That despite the courtyard seeming to not have a ceiling, the birds could never leave. A fact he realized when one tried to fly up and banged against something hard. The small thing got injured and fell right back to earth. It was only an injured wing, and when he cried to his father, wishing to heal it so it could fly again. "Don't worry, as long as it's here, I can always heal them up." His father speaks softly as they bandage up the birds wings, and he instructs Izuku in how to care for it. Though even when it was healed it looked almost miserable, never again flying as high as its other family. As if scared of being hurt. "Dad? Why don't you let the birds leave?" He questioned because the bird would look up at the sky. Likely staring at the invisible wall that was above them that seemed to keep them trapped in this garden-like courtyard. "For their own safety and to keep you company. If they were to leave, they wouldn't know how to survive, all they ever knew was this place. If you hadn't found it, it would have died," he points out, like it was a natural conclusion. He was keeping the bird safe by keeping it here, but it felt like he was talking about him. A subtle implication that if he were to leave he would get hurt and die. But there were no exits in this place, just large corridors with many different rooms. The older he gets, the more they seem to change as if to match his interest. A beautiful cage where he can want anything yet can never go outside.  However, he can't claim to be miserable, as it isn't as if he is completely cut off from the world either. He still has a TV and his computer where he can look at things. His father buys him anything he might want in a heartbeat, but Izuku noticed his favorite thing is to dress him up.  Similar to how girls might try on their mothers outfit, but instead of his mothers it was anything his father decides. He has worn a Chinese silk dress that his father praised as making him more beautiful than any woman. And Tang Suit that made him more attractive than any man. There were Victorian area gothic and gentleman attire as well as Kimonos. This started when he was seven, when he grew tired of playing the same old thing and his father suggested dressing up. He had thought it would be a suit and tie, but instead the clothing he wore was always more unique than the last.  It had never been Izuku's favorite thing, but he did it because it made his father happy; thus he enjoyed it. Before he knew it now he was wearing them naturally, in his old style of clothing, an old memory. His closet was full of foreign or ancient attire that the normal common people would never wear. Suitable only for upper echelons or festivals and special occasions. Yet he wears it for normal occasions.  The damage he has done to them would probably make many cry. In fact, he bawled when one of the dress pants tore, having thought his father would get upset. Only this never happened, his father never fussed, simply sending them away to be repaired or replaced.  Despite his confusion Izuku never questioned it. Not even as he got his ears pierced at his father's encouragement, saying how it made him look handsome. The way his father's eyes shined then looked almost disappointed at his hesitation is what made him decide. That he didn't mind being dressed up. If it made his dad happy, then it made him happy so he didn't mind. --------  In the back of his preteen's mind, he can't help but notice a similarity between himself, and dolls he has seen online. The way their dresses are expensive, the quality, and care as they eerily looked real. There were many dedicated fans that fawned over and cheered for their dolls as if they were alive sharing it with everyone. It made him uncomfortable reading these fans fawning over their inanimate objects. Not because he hated the dolls, but because it reminded him of something he thought was normal. To be posed, dressed up, and adored.  His father loved him, always spending time with him, only leaving if work was required. He was attentive to him and always helped teach him something new.  Even got him some online teachers, to teach him new things. If he was a doll, why would his father bother teaching him anything? Why give him a pet rabbit? He was overthinking things. "Dad, I want to go back to normal and make actual friends," Izuku spoke bluntly. Trying his damn hardest to keep himself calm as he asks, and had even prepared himself with his dads favorite outfit. It was a traditional green Hanfu dress with flowers. More than aware it is for women, but it isn't as if it matters in a home where the only company he's allowed is his father. "Didn't even give me a chance to marvel at how you got that on by yourself," His father spoke as if he was disappointed. "I'm being serious! I want to go to UA. I don't want to stay cooped up here forever! I've behaved myself for years since mom died because I didn't want to be a burden. But I'm begging you now;" Izuku pleads quickly, yet there was a slight fear of being rejected, of being told no. For years he has tried to be subtle with his desires, and god did he try, but he was a middle schooler. As his father stared at him intently, there was a sense of unease as his father's gaze seemed almost cruel. Like a predator staring at prey rather than a father looking at his own son before a smile formed on his lips. "You've really grown haven't you. My sweet baby boy," he coos softly with a gaze that seemed amused. "I can already tell, I would be breaking your heart if I said no. So I'll agree under a few 'conditions' for your safety, if you break them then you come right back here." Was this really happening? Izuku felt bewilderment as he had thought for sure the other was going to say no. He had been bracing for disappointment and his thoughts that he was some doll to come to reality. "Of course! Whatever it is I'm ok with it!" Izuku piped his eyes practically glowing right now as he finally had a chance to be a hero. He no longer had to dress up or just read about it- Sure, he didn't have a quirk, but UA High School no longer required it! "So dedicated then here are my conditions. One, you will follow a very 'strict' regime of my choosing after all you've been so spoiled you need to be prepared for anything. If you fail there is always Shiketsu, I will get you tutors." Hisashi informed him, and Izuku didn't see anything wrong with that as it would be to his benefit. So he nods his head. "Two, you must write me a report on everything you're learning and what your class is doing. I want to make sure they are treating you well and don't omit anything, I know your writing enough that can tell if missed something," this second condition was definitely a bit more harsh. To write a report of everything made it sound like he expected something bad to happen... Still, Izuku can do this, so if it will give dad peace of mind then he can do that. "Three, stay out of trouble. Yes you're trying to be a hero but I swear if I hear any kind of nonesense I will drag you back here or change your school," a slightly harsher condition. Izuku felt himself get a hint frusterated at these conditions as it felt like he didn't trust him. Still, he tries not to feel annoyed, since the alternative was being trapped here for who knows how long. "Those are my three conditions. Simple enough, if you stray from my teachers, exclude a report or get into trouble I reserve my right as your father to pull you out." Hisashi speaks casually, and Izuku suddenly realizes the weight of those conditions. "Dad, it kind of feels like you don't trust me," Izuku finally speaks up as he fiddles with the sleeve of his dress. His father just smiles at him as if this was some game despite this being about his future. "Trust me it isn't you I trust. It's the very world that took your mother away from us and that has taken my brother long ago. So promise me," the man speaks with a saddened gaze. Izuku felt his heart ache as he was reminded of how his father had to raise him alone. Feeling a bit guilty for getting annoyed when the man is simply worried and Izuku feels like he can't refuse. But at this moment he realizes just how scared his father was... He will have to make sure he doesn't worry. "...I promise father." At this moment he felt like he had just signed himself into a contract with the devil, but this was his dad. He worries, he cooks; he cares about him. The least he could do was follow his rules... He wants a chance to become a hero and escape this cage. By any means necessary.

[acesophiewalten]

📓?

OKAY OKAY OKAY SO-

This is an A Series of Unfortunate Events AU that the absolutely wonderful @violetbauds and I came up with and I love it vv much.

The basic gist is that Olaf and Kit end up getting together after all, Kit becomes a countess, and together they have four children. Klara and Alexander, the eldest twins, Alice, the darling child, and Oliver, a forgotten youngest son.

Klara’s a photojournalist, and she can come across as very blunt, sarcastic, and a bit emotionally unintelligent. She has a deep love for her siblings and sees her parents as basically nonexistent. She’s extremely logical, and thinks through anything before she does it. Labeled as a “problem child” for her comments and refusal to do anything for her parent’s benefit.

Alexander’s a chemist, specifically one specializing in poisons. He is a little bit more forgiving and flighty than his twin sister, but still pretty logical. He is more of the “fun” twin, often entertaining his little sibling’s ideas. His logical side only really works when he has time, though, and can be extremely unrealistic and panicked when under pressure and will infodump about the dangers of arsenic.

Alice is a painter, and is the most imaginative and nice out of all of her siblings. She’s frantically loyal to her mother, and later, VFD, and is the first to jump to their defense. She can believe people extremely easily, and harbors an intense hatred of the fire-starters and her father’s side of the family. Really, she just wants to sit in a field and watercolor for the rest of her life, and hopefully never be bothered.

Oliver’s a filmmaker, specifically a horror filmmaker. He’s the first to suggest short films and has a huge respect for Gustav Sebald, and his work. He looks and acts like a bab but knows a lot of wacky information on ways to kill someone, due to some extensive research. He is the only one who believes that his dad is going to return to his “old self” soon, and has an endless amount of excuses and a lot of anger towards his mom.

Okay so the plot technically has two kick-off points!

The first is when Kit is invited back into VFD, and she uses this to basically disappear from the world and her family at large. As much as she loves her children, she, at this point, is willing to do anything to get out of her toxic marriage and the suffocating life of a countess, and re-joining seems like the best bet to being invisible and staying invisible.

All of the Edvardson children, shocked by their mother’s disappearance, try to keep their life together, but their father is being even more of an ass than usual, blaming his wife’s disappearance sometimes on himself, sometimes on his children, and sometimes on VFD. This mentioning of VFD causes the Edvardson Children to try and find out more about it, and they only get back the code “If nothing was out there, then what was that noise?”

The second kick-off point is when Klara actually uses “If nothing was out there, then what was that noise?” and the Edvardson siblings are promptly kidnapped by VFD and put into training, thinking their father perished in the fire VFD set and that their mother didn’t really care. They were developed in their talents, and each proved valuable, but they were pretty miserable.

So one day, Klara and Alex decided to bolt, thinking that Alice and Oliver would follow. Alice, who bought VFD’s charade hook, line, and sinker, didn’t even bother trying to escape, and Oliver was held back by hearing about the plan too late. Klara and Alex promptly ran into the fire-starting side, who kept them around solely because they were good leverage and decent workers.

Alice, for her apprenticeship, was put with Montgomery Montgomery, who treated her nicely and generally acted like the father she never had, and she became one of the primary caregivers of his various reptiles.

Oliver was given over to Jacques, which wasn’t really a good choice. Not because Jacques was mean, just because he was an annoyingly cryptic chaperone who never let Oliver in on anything and was just super underwhelming, though he did do one thing. He told Oliver that his mother was alive, which he relayed back to Alice to her delight and shock.

Klara is thrown in with Esmè, as they all agree that giving Olaf any kid at the moment would be pretty bad, even for their standards. Esmè “hires” Klara, and basically uses her as her maid/valet/secretary. Klara uses her fact over feeling mind to simply act like a robot when Esmè’s watching, and then try doing things her own way when she’s not around. Mostly hanging with Jerome, who she saw as her rock while all of this was going down.

Alex is thrown with Ernest in the hotel and is also treated like a worker, although is treated a bit more nicely due to Frank and Dewey being around. He also manages to see his mom sometimes, which is nice. He has conflicting feelings but is just grateful one of his family members are around and willing to talk to him. He sends out telegrams and is actually in a bit of regular communication with Alice for a week, until the machine is broken - possibly by Ernest - and he can’t send anymore. In the grand scheme of things, this wasn’t a huge change, and it’s better than being treated like a worker or a five year old, but still.

I just really want to write about these guys and their interactions with the Bauds and Quagmires and how their perspective on everything impacts the story!!

I just realized this was more of an AU dump than a fanfic idea, rithanhsns im sorry

If y’all have any questions on this au/these guys, lemme know!!!

[mediaeval-muse]

Book Review

Radiance. By Grace Draven. Self-Published, 2014.

Rating: 2/5 stars

Genre: fantasy romance

Part of a Series? Yes, Wraith Kings #1

Summary: THE PRINCE OF NO VALUE Brishen Khaskem, prince of the Kai, has lived content as the nonessential spare heir to a throne secured many times over. A trade and political alliance between the human kingdom of Gaur and the Kai kingdom of Bast-Haradis requires that he marry a Gauri woman to seal the treaty. Always a dutiful son, Brishen agrees to the marriage and discovers his bride is as ugly as he expected and more beautiful than he could have imagined. THE NOBLEWOMAN OF NO IMPORTANCE Ildiko, niece of the Gauri king, has always known her only worth to the royal family lay in a strategic marriage. Resigned to her fate, she is horrified to learn that her intended groom isn’t just a foreign aristocrat but the younger prince of a people neither familiar nor human. Bound to her new husband, Ildiko will leave behind all she’s known to embrace a man shrouded in darkness but with a soul forged by light. Two people brought together by the trappings of duty and politics will discover they are destined for each other, even as the powers of a hostile kingdom scheme to tear them apart.

***Full review under the cut.***

Trigger/Content Warnings: sexual content, bullying, violence, blood; references to infanticide, ableism, torture, and incest

Overview: I learned of this book when an artist I follow on tumblr mentioned it as one of their favorites. I had high hopes after seeing so many 4 and 5 star reviews, but unfortunately for me, I wasn’t as enthusiastic as most people seem to be. While I did appreciate that the hero wasn’t a gruff, emotionally damaged, violent man, I personally found the story as a whole to be rather dull. There were way too many scenes that focused on domestic life at the Kai castles, and while that could have been an interesting plot in itself if the stakes were high enough, the political drama wasn’t developed enough to be thrilling, nor was the Kai court different enough from the human one to be a tale about immersing oneself in a new culture. Even looking at this book purely through the lens of romance, I don’t think there was enough there; while I don’t think the hero should have been mean to the heroine or something like that, I do think the relationship could have benefitted from developing a little more, and for Draven to have really dug into the nuances of what changes when a couple moves from friends to lovers. Thus, this book only gets 2 stars from me.

Writing: Draven has a simple writing style that fits well within the romance genre. It flows well and balances telling and showing so that worldbuilding doesn’t feel too info-dumpy. My biggest complaints are things that are easily fixable, like correcting typos and moving flashbacks around so that they occur at more appropriate moments. Other than that, I don’t have too much to say about the writing; it was fine.

Plot: In a way, this book is a Beauty and the Beast retelling: two people must overcome their revulsion to the other’s appearance before they fall in love with the good character underneath. Behind this main plot is a political drama in which several kingdoms are vying for territory, making and breaking alliances while a conniving queen does her best to stay in power.

Regarding the Beauty and the Beast plot, I really liked that Radiance seemed to adhere more closely to the core themes of the original fairy tale than a lot of other retellings I’ve encountered; instead of a story about a woman trying to tame the “bestial” man with her womanly charms, both characters in Draven’s book have to learn to see the other as beautiful by learning to appreciate one another’s culture. The main scenes that come to mind that do this well are the times when Ildiko (our heroine) finds beauty in the Kai death ritual (the mortem light) and when her expectations are subverted when it comes to the food the Kai eat (not the scarpatine, but the other dishes). I also liked that Draven devoted a lot of time to detailing why the Kai found human eyes so off-putting, and Brishen (our hero) comes to appreciate them when learning to read his wife’s emotions. If anything, my main complaint is that I think Draven could have done more to enhance these themes by tweaking her worldbuilding; the Kai were different from humans in a lot of ways, but so much was the same (court politics, social hierarchy, etc.) that I think the task of learning to appreciate a different culture wasn’t difficult enough. I would have liked to see the Kai have a completely different social structure, one that was so alien to the human characters that learning to see the beauty in it proved to be more of a challenge. Because adapting wasn’t too hard and Brishen and Ildiko seemed to have no moments where they suddenly realized they loved rather than just respected or liked the other, I was frequently bored, mostly because there were so many domestic scenes without relationship milestones - instances where Ildiko and Brishen came together as a couple, bonding over things that challenged them to grow as people.

The political plot, in my opinion, was a little ho-hum and wasn’t nearly present enough to be important. We are told that there are rising tensions between three kingdoms, and some people disapprove of the marriage alliance between Brishen and Ildiko, but it kind of felt like a background threat, in part because there were so many scenes depicting feasts (4, by my count) rather than political intrigue, or we get scenes like Ildiko dropping her mother’s necklace in a vat of dye and then Brishen offers to take her to the next town to repair it. Sure, a couple of bandits try to kill Brishen and Ildiko, and some treachery happens later in the book, but the middle section mainly consists of feast scenes, domestic life, or petty drama. I wanted a little more substance to the non-romance plot; perhaps the marriage could have been more explicitly important for the well-being of the Kai kingdom as a whole, and Ildiko has to use her skills to make the Kai more loyal to her. Or, Draven could have gone another route and made the Kai queen to have a clearer political agenda throughout the book other than just being mean to everyone around her. It is mentioned that Brishen and his brother are afraid to cross her in part because magical ability diminishes with each successive generation; maybe that could have been a major focal point or hurdle when plotting against the Queen, rather than an incidental detail that only returns later in the book. Either way, I wanted the politics to be more than just background, and for there to be much higher stakes that will be felt by more people than just Brishen and Ildiko.

Characters: Ildiko, our heroine, is a human woman who enters into an arranged marriage with a Kai prince in order to seal an alliance. I really liked that a lot of the story was centered on Ildiko learning to acclimate to Kai culture and navigate their court politics, and I think it was smart to show that her experience as a courtier in the human kingdom helped her survive the Kai one. I do wish Ildiko’s personal arc had been more about her overcoming her prejudices to appreciate a different culture; while Ildiko isn’t outright racist or resistant to adapting, I do think it would have been more emotionally satisfying if she had clearly entered the marriage with a lot of assumptions about the Kai that turned out to be untrue. If that didn’t sound appealing, maybe Ildiko’s ability to navigate court politics could have been more integral to the plot as a whole, rather than her rather passive role during the final showdown.

Brishen, our hero, was a pleasant surprise; he was kind and considerate, and he didn’t let his power-hungry parents turn him into a gruff, emotionally-unavailable husband. While I did like that he was kind, I also wish his personal arc had been more about overcoming his assumptions about humans or overcoming some other personal conflict, such as balancing his duty to his people/kingdom with his desire to escape the more toxic elements of it. In that regard, I think his romance with Ildiko could have served an interesting purpose: by teaching Ildiko about his culture, he learns to appreciate it more while also finding an escape in her. It would also be cool if he realized that duty doesn’t necessarily mean obeying the monarchs, but doing what’s best for the people.

Supporting characters were a mixed bag. Some, like Brishen’s cousin Anhuset, were interesting but didn’t seem to have a subplot of their own, while others, like Queen Secmet, seemed one-dimensional. In some ways, the one-dimensional characters ensured that most of the focus was on Brishen and Ildiko, but I would have liked a little less feasting and a little more high-stakes conflict that involved these side characters functioning in ways that developed their own arcs.

Romance: Ildiko’s and Brishen’s romance follows a friends-to-lovers arc. When the characters first meet, they instantly bond over their willingness to be honest about their feelings regarding the other’s appearance and culture. I liked that they didn’t start out as completely repulsed by one another, and the friendship bond made for a good safety net when Ildiko has to face the Kai court. I do wish, however, that there had been more explicit developments in showing how the relationship moves from friendship to romantic love. For example, I would have liked scenes where Ildiko has moments of realization regarding what a good man Brishen is, and where Brishen realizes how good a woman his wife is, both in reaction to major plot points (rather than what we get, which is stuff like Ildiko watching Brishen prepare to spar or something). Some of those moments are there in the plot as-is - I’m thinking scenes like when Ildiko learns what an honor it is to have Brishen carry a mortem light for someone beneath his class - but I think there could have been a more defined romance arc.

Worldbuilding: I really liked that Draven didn’t feel the need to overwhelm the reader with worldbuilding details, but I also think she should have done more to make the world feel more purposefully crafted. My biggest problem with Draven’s worldbuilding is that certain elements seemed to be present for no reason at all, or because they were convenient details. For example, the Kai make this very expensive dye called amaranthine, and though we’re told that humans benefit from trading for it, the amaranthine isn’t really involved in an interesting way other than for Ildiko to accidentally stain her skin with in a moment of thoughtlessness. Also, during the last big showdown, we’re randomly told that there are magefinders and a temple which shields the Kai from these magefinders. It felt like these details were inserted for convenience, and I wish more was done to make the setting feel like a character itself.

TL;DR: Radiance does a good job at subverting some expectations, but ultimately doesn’t have a plot that challenges the characters to grow, either individually or as a couple.

[allyvampirelass29]

The Hourglass and The Oracle

A NOS4A2 Review By: Allyssa J. Watkins

A spiraling staircase A bold fuchsia beauty Lights flicker in your eyes As our energies collide And, Darling, you're starting to get to me......

I'm not your Darling, John Buy a girl a drink first Before you thirst For what you can't get your hands on Throwing my head back with a laugh You're going to fall And it's going to be too fast Who said I was yours to catch? Ask me again And I'll ask you to dance

May I have a moment of your time? I don't need to be a Strong Creative, Dear To tease your mind A turn of the hourglass A trick of the sublime You're like sand through my hands Sifting too fast to touch And it's not enough...... You're the exceptional exception When I say we're hard to love.

Sparks fly Drawing you in I'll make you believe in magic again Fate's siren song calls to the Hourglass Man I guess it's my turn To show you my hand But be forewarned, My Gentleman Friend There's no telling what happens When you open the door to the static You might not want the answer Once you have it Shaking the bag Rolling the Dice A cigarette burn is a more than fair price To watch time drain from the Hourglass' eyes Clutching the hurt As your knife catches my eye Shattering your glass Scattering your sand Close your eyes, You Hopeless Flirt This is me, skipping dessert I gotta say you put up one hell of a fight Say goodnight, John You've run out of time

CHECK. FREAKING. MATE!!!!! Ladies and Gentlemen, the MATCH has been called, and the Hourglass didn't stand a chance against the Woman of the Hour, Our Dauntless Oracle, and very own, Miss Margaret Leigh!!! My GOD, Maggie seized her time to shine in a dazzling foray of sultry seduction, and deadly spectacle, and while it may have been The Hourglass' last bow, it was the iridescent ORACLE who stole the show, and she alone deserves our standing ovation!!! I LOVED this episode, beginning to end, the intrigue, the sleek deception, the intense human drama, all beautifully intertwined in this beguiling game within a game, a chess match of like-minded Creative prowess!!! Brava, Miss Leigh, and bravissimo, NOS4A2, for spoiling us yet again!!! "The Hourglass," is a violin overture of vulnerable human moments, and intellectual powerplays, reaching the fever pitch of the most ghastly, scream-bloody-murder cliff hangar of the entire series.

Where last week Charlie was the blunt force trauma, the pounding hammer, smashing everyone and everything in his path to Wayne, Maggie is the stealth strike, the seductively wielded scalpel, removing Charlie's secret weapon with lethal precision, after he proves to be the more immediate threat to her best friend, now that Charlie's absconded with her son. She's a force to be reckoned with, a fuchsia femme fatale, as lovely as she is deadly, the perfect rosé of coy and coquettish as she flirts with time and death itself. It was her finest hour, hands down, and I LOVED that NOS4A2 gave her the spotlight, and that she literally KILLED, leaving us begging for more.

Stop me if you've heard this one before. Two Strong Creatives walk into a bar........ Like an ingenue reminiscent of Old Hollywood, with every lilac strand of her rebellious florescence pinned in place, Maggie descends the long, spiral staircase, sending the lights to flicker, and drawing the eye of an instantly intrigued, Mr. Hourglass. I must say, The Hourglass Man's smooth, and tenacious pursuit of our Maggie, was a FANTASTIC blindsight, a surprise I never saw coming!!! Where I expected a smouldering duel to the death as soon as their eyes met, knives flying, I found myself drawn instead, irresistibly into the tantalizing tango between the two of them. Their witty repartee was both sparkling, and sharp-edged, as John advanced, and Maggie countered, playing hard to get, while secretly drawing him in. It's thrilling to watch, marveling at these seemingly unlikely lovers, and yet, with each move and countermove, I could see how much they thought alike, both crafty intellectuals, who knew how to play the game, and how to win.

"We're hard to love. People fall for us because of our abilities, but they always come to fear the very thing that drew them in. They tell us to tone it down, betray our gifts, like declawing a cat. It's cruel."

This is my favourite line in the entire episode, it struck me straight to the heart, tears in my eyes, overwhelmed by its tragic beauty and excruciating truth. It's also the one time that Maggie's smoky-eyed seductive veil slips, and she lets herself feel something very real. In that moment, as fleeting as it is, there are no sides, no waiting plots, or poised vendettas. There are two Strong Creatives, two kindred supernatural beings with very human feelings. Victims of their own gifts, with universal wants, and desires. Powers greater than their wildest dreams, but at what cost? In this moment, Maggie cares about John, connects with him, because she feels these words burn emblazoned, even hotter than the cigarette he's about to press into her arm.

Two Strong Creatives walk into a bar....... and only one comes out alive. These two take, "Get a room," to a whole new level!!! "I'm not going to hurt you, unless you want me to........." John says smoothly, before pressing a lit cigarette into Maggie's arm, telling her to harness the pain, let it consume her, until it's all she knows, and then whispers his question like a sweet nothing in her ear, nuzzling her close. John, with all of his scheming predilections and parlor tricks has found a way to cheat the Strong Creative check when it comes due. In event of seizures, or memory loss, you can hurt yourself...... or hurt someone else. I had always secretly suspected this proviso, I even wrote it into my own NOS4A2 Series, that my character's compassion gets punished by unknowingly hurting someone else, every time she uses her gift, but seeing John's shocking demonstration, breathing in with explicit pleasure as he burns her, watching Maggie's big brown eyes spark, both excited, and relieved that she can hurt herself and still use her powers, was an absolute ordeal. I have a feeling Maggie just discovered a dangerous new addiction........

Speaking of ordeals........ John shatters a glass table, ready to kill the messenger, when he doesn't get the answer that he wants, the fates formally denying his request for immortality. And it is here, in the midst of his ruffled, heartbroken, rage, that the events deviated dramatically from my own predictions. I thought Charlie had promised him immortality in exchange for killing Vic McQueen, and that Maggie had unwittingly unmasked this betrayal, proving Charlie had lied, offering the Creative Holy Grail that he intended to keep for himself. Immortality, apparently a non-transferrable work benefit. With our slighted Hourglass primed for revenge, and his particular fascination for Maggie, I thought for sure she'd be able to turn him against Charlie, brandish the Hourglass against his new business partner, rallying him to Vic's cause, and more or less, have him join Team McQueen to take Manx down once and for all.

I was wrong...... So, so wrong. I don't think any of us saw what was coming....... "It's rare I get such a hands on opportunity," John rasps, once he finds his stolen knife in Maggie's bag, teasing seduction climaxing into a crime of passion, as the two of them scrapple and scrape for the hourglass. "Sweetheart, give up. You're not getting out of here alive." Maggie gets choked, hurled over the shattered glass table, but you can't keep a good girl down, and The Hourglass is no Charlie Manx. "I tried to warn you, John, my tiles are never wrong." Maggie thrusts a shard of glass up into the Hourglass Man's heart, and with an anguished, hopeless cry he watches her stomp his knife into the ground, coming down on it hard, leaving nothing but shattered glass, and scattered sand. WOW........ I am speechless. I have to admit, I did not expect Charlie's new player and point man to be vanquished this early in the game, as awestruck as I am by this new fearless facet of Maggie's unique brilliance. She was elegant, badass, and beautiful, and I'm so glad he's dead, but I don't know....... I felt like his death was his third and final disappointment. Sorry John, we'll always have Parnassus.

Oh my God, if Maggie was this episode's Oscar Winner for Best Actress, Linda Freaking McQueen WINS for Best Supporting Actress!!!! She's the other sassy heroine of "The Hourglass," mouthing off to FBI agents like nobody's business, and it is SENSATIONAL!!!! "What does FBI stand for, huh? Failed. Bad. Incompetent? We're Americans!!! My husband works for the postal service, I go to CHURCH!!! Do better!!!" You TELL 'EM Linda!!! She's a delight in every scene she's in, standing up to the suits, and telling them what's what!!! She's had it with these big, fancy, feds not protecting her daughter, and she ain't afraid to get vocal about it. Aaaaaah and the whole conversation with her and Chris was AMAZING!!! There is something so fascinating about two hard knock realists, two complete skeptics talking about the possibility of the Supernatural.

"There's a difference between special, Chris, and magic. Our daughter ain't magic."

"How would you know?"

"Because I wiped her snotty nose, for Christ's sake!!! What kind of mother misses something like that?"

"The kind that's too busy hiding bruises and paying bills to look up."

Linda's emphatic disbelief is so perfect, and I just love the way she says that, "Our daughter ain't magic!" I also love how Chris is starting to believe in Vic, and it's that burgeoning faith in his daughter's abilities that makes Linda start to wonder if maybe her daughter could be magic. Chris owning up to his past mistakes, and blaming himself, for his wife's oversight, was such a bittersweet moment too, wanting so badly to let her off the hook. He's changed, they both have, and I couldn't be more proud. Another beautifully human moment that I really loved was between her and Vic, and here we finally find out why the McQueen women can't be close to each other. "I never felt that you needed me." It's a rare, deeply insightful look into Linda's heart, a vulnerable truth, and I feel like I know them both even better through it. Linda needs to be needed, she needs to have somebody to take care of, somebody that relies on her, and with a drunk, philandering husband who sought comfort elsewhere, and a fiercely independent daughter, Linda had no one. She felt listless, without purpose, and thus drowned her sorrows with a tipped back bottle.

The scene with Vic and Lou cuddling in his hospital bed also strikes a chord in this veritable symphony of human emotion, and with every new episode, I ship Team McCarmody even harder!!! Lou with a stint in his heart, and Vic with a concussion, and injured spleen, have this impossibly sweet moment, in the midst of the aftermath and ever-present horror of the abduction of their son. I love how they anchor each other, try to calm each other down, and still manage to make each other laugh.

"Han Solo ain't half the mechanic as Lou Carmody."

"Did you- Did you just refer to yourself in the third person...... and rate yourself....... ABOVE Han Solo?"

Vic's laugh in that moment is so pure, and a much needed relief, as she holds onto the love, the teddy bear of a man, that Charlie couldn't take from her, and in that moment, she decides to focus on what she has left, even while fighting for what she has lost. I'm reminded of a quote from my other favourite show, HEROES. "We're human first, and heroes second."

Charlie may take a back seat this episode, but he is still a coaxing, debonair presence with a teasing linger, and not without another clever trick up his sleeve. "There is no need to hide your cellular telephone from me, My Boy," He coos as Wayne fumbles to sneak a call to his Mom. I was SHOCKED when Charlie urged Young Bats to do just that, call his mother. "What kind of MONSTER do you take me for?" He asks silkily, feigning indignance, and with bated breath, we wait as the phone rings, and rings, and rings...... No way in HELL is Vic not taking that call, and yet, Young Master Wayne hangs his wildly curly head, defeated, as the call goes unanswered. "She's a real heartbreaker, your mother...... isn't she? Never there for you, no matter how good you are. It's not personal, Wayne. In the end Vic McQueen cares only for herself and no one else," Charlie chortles, and he knows it's working....... bit by bit, he means to turn his new favourite charge, against his own mother, convince him of her neglect and indifference. My theory? Charlie can block calls using his creative power, which would explain how he's avoided capture, and the FBI's modern trappings for so long. You sneaky, sneaky boy!!!

OH HELLO CRAIG!!!! Yes, you read that right...... CRAIG, Wayne's father who burned to death in the Wraith, like a ghastly apparition appears to his son, with singed skin, and glazed over eyes. At first I thought this was Charlie manipulating Wayne, showing what his mother did to his father, and how he wasn't ever going to be safe with her, but to my own astonishment, Charlie could not see him!!! Craig encourages Wayne, tells him Charlie's lying, gives him hope, and insists she's coming for him. I thought that was a spectacular, wide-eyed SHOCK that came out of thin air, and I couldn't help but think about how Cassie appeared to her daughter in this same way........ Hmmm can children, if they are Strong Creatives themselves, see the parents they have lost at the hands of Charlie Manx? Curiouser and curiouser........

My breath caught, everything going numb, when that bloody tooth fell out in Wayne's tiny hand. I LOVE that little boy with all my heart and soul, and I'm sorry, Charlie, but I do NOT want him to become a vampire!!! Wayne starts to change in other ways too, playing with a butterfly, as his usual cheerful self, adorably naming him Sunny, before killing it, ripping it into shreds, his sweet little face devoid of any emotion. WHAT!? I had chills like crazy, and I felt heartsick. I don't know though, did anybody else think that butterfly looked strange, almost not quite real? The way the Wraith rolled down the window to let it in...... It makes me wonder if this didn't just happen in Wayne's mind.

I did notice though, how long it took for the Wraith to siphon off Wayne's youth to heal the nasty gash on Charlie's cheek. Even Charlie starts to worry, checking the mirror again and again, only to find it slightly healed, and it's not until the near end of the episode that he looks one more time, nails resting on the side of his head, sighing into his hand with relief, when he sees his once again flawless visage staring back. It's like Wayne is fighting the car, slowing down its effects, because no child has gone this long without turning!!! All exciting further proof that Wayne HAS to be a Strong Creative!!! I also love how Charlie continues to be the perfect, doting father figure, ever so careful and patient with Wayne, and I just melted, with a besotted sigh when he asked him if he had to use the water closet!" That was precious!!! Also, my new FAVOURITE thing ever, is Charlie click-clacking his long, gorgeous nails along the Wraith's windows as he walks past it!!! Dear GOD, Handsome, WHAT are you doing to me!?

THAT ending though........ I'm crying....... I SOBBED, I'm so not okay. What the freaking HELL.........!?!? Just as we're all having cozy Charlie and Wayne feelings, fawning over them both, that DAMNED BASTARD Bing Partridge comes out of NOWHERE surprising our dashing vampire, shoving the gas hose in his face, and he goes down HARD!!!! Once he's disabled the Wraith, he abducts Charlie, and leaves Wayne behind. It's blood-curdling to watch....... knowing what horrors Bing has already committed, and what dark intention he holds for his once upon a time hero, now that Charlie's left him to die. I'm freaking scared. I was hyperventilating, and full of murderous fury even hours after the episode had ended. The wait for next week is going to hit a lot different, after that cruel cliff-hanger, and I can only hope Charlie can dangle Christmasland in an effort to thwart Bing's fat, homicidal hand. Bing Partridge, you hateful Son of a BITCH, if you disturb so much as one strand of Charlie's beautiful raven hair, I'm gonna KILL you SO DEAD!!! Time's run out for the Hourglass, will another of Vic's foes meet the same fate? Bing Partridge must DIE!!! Somebody......... SAVE CHARLIE MANX!!!!!

[creepingsharia]

A Month of Islam in America: February 2020

In February, the counter-jihad lost an invaluable resource. Philip Haney, the DHS whistleblower who exposed the purge of Muslim terrorist data during the Obama era, was found dead.

Phil was very likely murdered by those he was routinely exposing and closing in on. In fact, he was found dead just weeks after giving an interview detailing how terror-linked Muslims have continued to infiltrate all levels of U.S. government.

Watch Phil’s last video interview: Jihad Influence in America Reaches into VP Pence’s Office

A more detailed timeline of his whistleblower complaint in the video below.

Video: Phil Haney presents a timeline of infiltration at DHS and the FBI

RIP Phil Haney and may many more Phil Haney’s be called to action.

Click any link below for more details and a link to the original source.

Jihad in America:

Washington: Iraqi Immigrant Arrested in Murder of ex-Wife;  Friends Fear She Was 'Honor Killed' for Western Lifestyle

Police arrested Yasir Darraji on first-degree murder charges on Friday night.

Virginia: Somali Muslim FBI translator caught when own voice intercepted on terror surveillance calls gets ...probation!

Abdirizak Wehelie falsified transcripts in a terror case and lied to the FBI about it. His son was convicted of illegally transporting high-powered weapons in an ISIS case. Yet all he got was probation and a $1,000 fine.

Arizona: al-Qaeda Leader Wanted by Iraq for Murder of Iraqi Police Officers Arrested...in Phoenix!

Ali Yousif Ahmed Al-Nouri is wanted to stand trial in Iraq for two charges of premeditated murder committed in 2006 in Al-Fallujah.

‘Palestinian’ Woman Who Threatened to ‘Stab Everyone on Plane’ is Teacher at North Carolina Montessori School

Dana Ghazi Mustafa stated, “I’m going to stab everyone…I’m Palestinian! That’s how we get down.”

New York: Muslim immigrant who killed 8 in Halloween jihad attack threatens to decapitate corrections officer

Sayfullo Saipov threatened to decapitate a federal corrections officer for repeatedly waking him while he’s locked up at the Metropolitan Correctional Center

Arkansas: Muslim who killed U.S. soldier, injured another in 2009 Little Rock terror attack, loses appeal

The Arkansas Supreme Court on Thursday tossed out the appeal of Abdulhakim Muhammad who shot two soldiers, killing one, at a Little Rock recruiting station in 2009.

Illinois: U.S. Revokes Citizenship of Pakistani Who Entered U.S. Illegally, Plotted with al-Qaeda to Destroy Brooklyn Bridge

Iyman Faris, a Pakistani Muslim convicted of supporting al Qaeda, is no longer a U.S. citizen.

More Jihad in America:

Michigan: Muslim who nearly beat dog to death gets... probation

Abdulrazzaq Salah Mustafa is only going to get probation for nearly beating a dog named Champ to death.

Florida: Muslim convert stabs teen to death in jihad attack, Grocery store faces lawsuit

Florida: Man arrested after video shows him striking, throwing puppy against wall (for six minutes)

Legal Jihad in America:

DC: Muslim sues State Department, Pompeo for refusing to let her work from home during Ramadan

Previous monthly reports here.

Immigration Jihad also known as Hijra:

Arizona: Two men arrested with  370 pounds of cocaine and 220 pounds of meth valued at $12.7M

Alabama: Iraqi Refugee Who Lied to Get into U.S. Gets Probation and Loses Citizenship

DC: How the 'Interpreter' Scam Brought 75,000 Iraqis and Afghans to America

Minnesota: Dem Candidate Klobuchar Vows to Increase Number of Refugees Resettled in U.S. by More Than 500 Percent if Elected

Minnesota: Somali community leader says Ilhan Omar did marry her brother and said she would 'do what she had to do to get him "papers" to keep him in U.S.'

DC: Trump expands travel restrictions to six more countries that fail to "comply with basic national security"; H1B’s and refugees EXEMPT

New Jersey: Muslim-proposed ordinance will let Paterson mosques blast Muslim call to prayer across city

New Jersey: Paterson swears in new police chief...on Koran (video)

Rape Jihad in America - courtesy of Mass Immigration:

Illinois: Muslim Uber driver sentenced to 5 years in prison for sexually abusing rider Utah: Man arrested for raping wheelchair-bound woman in Salt Lake County

Mosques - the incubators of sharia and jihad in America:

For first time in Iowa history, mosques, five of them, used as caucus sites

Minnesota: St. Cloud City Council Approves Mosque in Basement of old O'Hara Brothers Building

Washington: Despite not having funds, new $3.3M mosque breaks ground in Bellevue

Fraud for Jihad:

Pennsylvania’s first Muslim female state rep gets just 3 months jail for stealing more than $500K from nonprofit founded to serve mentally ill and poor

Michigan: Detroit-Area Physicians Guilty in $150M Scheme Ohio: Somali market owners redeemed more than $10M in food stamp, WIC benefits charged in fraud conspiracy New York: Burqa-wearing thief steals nearly $1 million in jewelry from Piaget in Hudson Yards

Sharia and Dhimmitude in Government & Corporate America:

Bernie Sanders names daughter of Muslim Brotherhood leader as Virginia campaign co-chair

Philadelphia whitewashes investigation regarding who is responsible for video of Muslim children that performed in jihad skits

Florida: Cop Suspended for Liking Wife’s Social Media Posts Criticizing Tlaib and Omar Minnesota: Catholic priest apologizes for homily describing Islam as biggest threat to U.S. and Christianity

The all too infrequent victory against sharia and jihad in America:

California: Terror-Tied CAIR Candidate Event Shut Down When Patriots Demand Respect for Trump and USA (VIDEO)

Author to Speak at U.S. Army War College After Being Canceled by Terror-linked CAIR

Please share this and other posts on your social media sites.

Previous monthly reports here.

[extraordinarilyextreme]

about jinguangyao and wangzhi

like all the people who came from MDZS/CQL/The Untamed have pointed out the similarities between the two: conniving, scheming, and a pretty boy

but honestly if they ever sat down to have tea, i feel like wangzhi might drop his diplomatic smile within if not a few minutes, then certainly within a few hours

what wangzhi values most is loyalty. unconditional loyalty, and with that comes long-lasting devotion and the willingness to sacrifice the self. in other words, all of wangzhi’s ambition is only for his majesty/the imperial consort. he is willing to use people, to charm and blackmail people, in order to create a network of unflinchingly loyal people to the two most important people in his life (before tangfan and suizhou and dong’er and the Fam)

he is willing to torture people, but as suizhou gently tells him at the end of the show, “you’ve changed. you’ve become soft.” and this is a good thing: wangzhi has people he loves and wants to protect and people who love and want to protect him in return. as ruthless as he was, he didn’t immediately execute dingrong even though his right-hand-man pointed a gun to his head and held a blade to his neck. as cruel and efficient as he can be, wangzhi genuinely likes his little group of beggar children; he feeds and clothes them and guarantees them a warm place to stay. he brought food for every single child without leaving any for himself. he used dong’er for a case while doing everything in his power to guarantee her safety; then he later on cooks for her (and remember food = love in this show) and keeps her company while fanzhou are out/missing

but jinguangyao, to me at least, has only ever thought about himself. his ambition was only for himself; he wanted power, authority, and control so desperately because he was denied all that at a young age. all the people he killed were for his own personal gain and benefit. using weiwuxian as a scapegoat to get rid of jinzixuan, orchestrating niemingjue’s death because his sworn-brother (no less) didn’t trust him anymore. the way he manipulated qinsu and then murdered his own son. his father was an absolute dickhead but i, personally, still don’t believe he deserved to die so wretchedly. 

while they seem to act similar, their core values are fundamentally different. jinguangyao believes he’s a victim, that he deserves better and is thus allowed to enact revenge and make the choices he does. wangzhi is very much satisfied with his status as a eunuch and servant to the emperor and imperial consort; his life is inferior to theirs and it is his responsibility to protect the two people who trust him so much—he refuses to let their trust be in vain. both characters lost their mothers at a young age, but where wangzhi had the imperial consort to offer him a warm meal (food = love!!!!!!), jinguangyao probably did not have the luxury of a stranger’s kindness. 

wangzhi thanked suizhou and tangfan for being his friends because he admitted that he did not have many. but he doesn’t nurse or let that grievance consume him. instead, he works all the harder to protect the two people he NEEDS to protect, and this is why the emperor and imperial consort continue to back/support him in their own ways. (“wangzhi is not our son,” the emperor reminded his wife, and the imperial consort agreed, perhaps coldly in the face of wangzhi’s immutable devotion. but the love both of them have in return for this 17-year-old commander bleeds through. “you’ve lost weight. remember to eat more,” the imperial consort gently admonished wangzhi. “i am assured. no matter what danger comes my way, don’t i always have you at my side?” the emperor told wangzhi.) and after he indulges in and accepts his intrigue and later genuine fondness for tangfan and suizhou and their family, it only makes him stronger. these people wholeheartedly love him; they’re not simply afraid of him. these people will not betray him in the same way he would never betray the emperor and the imperial consort.

jinguangyao lied to and manipulated lanxichen, probably one of the first and only people to ever care for him so earnestly. sushe is a bit of an outlier, but they bonded in their rejection and lack of recognition in a toxic echo chamber rather than helping each other move beyond their grievances. he is definitely a product of his circumstances, but this also calls to mind the parallel between xueyang and weiwuxian. both orphaned and scorned, only that weiwuxian met a shijie who taught him what it was like to be loved and to love. with that, weiwuxian was able to develop his unwavering set of morals and brand of integrity beyond just the senseless vengeance and hatred xueyang clung to.

wangzhi’s underlying policy is “i help you, you help me”. he is willing to think about the benefit of others other than himself, even if in the beginning, it’s for the sake of having leverage/blackmail over people. but what does he gain from visiting dong’er while tangfan was missing? nothing, really. he’s able to grow from just mutually-beneficial-but-lacking-sincerity actions to ones where he acts of his own volition; he then genuinely helps/cares about people without an ulterior motive.

the other part of wangzhi’s ideals include “if you are not beneficial to his majesty, then you are unnecessary”. this is very different from jinguangyao’s “if you are not beneficial to ME, then you are unnecessary”. wangzhi is thinking in the best interests of someone else; even all his schemes to curry favor are ultimately because he knows he has to be liked/fear/in a position of power to better be of use to the emperor. his main motivation is never himself, but the people who trust him. jinguangyao’s schemes are for his own benefit; since the only person he really has to protect is himself, he can easily just murder/slander people who are not of use to him. it’s more complicated for wangzhi, who knows he must be in a position that optimizes his ability to protect the emperor and the imperial consort.

both jinguangyao and wangzhi smile to survive. but i really feel like wangzhi might just drop the act because jinguangyao isn’t even deserving of that diplomacy. he’d probably slap jinguangyao.

tldr; wangzhi has people other than himself that he genuinely cares about; jinguangyao really only cares about himself

[ofregiums]

silence ! raise the royal standard, for the queen of the polish-lithuanian commonwealth, ISABELA HASLER, has arrived. being twenty-five years old, she is currently on the throne. many around the court call her the siren by virtue of her being ambitious and charismatic, while also being cunning and hot-headed.  —played by chloe bridges

— THE BASICS

full name: isabela anne hasler nee lopez known in history as: the commoner queen date of birth: november 20th age: twenty-five star sign: scorpio profession: stay at home mom ( modern verse ) / queen of the polish-lithuanian commonwealth  ( canon verse ) loyalty: house hasler, house de trastamara alignment: chaotic neutral mbti: intj spoken languages: spanish ( first ), english ( fluent ), german ( beginner ), polish ( beginner ) mother’s name: eleanor fry ( deceased in both verses ) father’s name: andrés lopez ( deceased in both verses ) siblings, if any: maria lopez ( older ) children: augustus hasler, helena hasler height: 5′5″ hair colour: black. eye colour: dark brown

— CANON VERSE

ambition is the word that follows isabela’s entire existence and it started from the very moment she was brought into this world. a product of a desperately conniving farmer of a father and a naive teacher of a mother, she was born in valencia, spain as a product of an affair. you see, her father was already married with a young child. but once eleanor came into his line of sight, he knew he had to haver her.

eleanor did not live long enough to bear the shame of being an unwed mother for she perished during childbirth. andrés took little isabela and brought her to his wife luisa to be raised alongside her older half-sister maria, who was only four at the time.

from a very early age, andrés suffered from a great rage that he took out on his wife and daughters. it was a bit of a vicious circle, really. maria did all that she could to protect isabela but luisa -- still bitter that she was a product of infidelity -- looked the other way if the rage was directed at the young girl. words, hands. . . it did not matter. it was simply the way he got his point across.

as isabela grew into her own, andrés and luisa began to notice her great beauty and began to scheme how best to utilize it to benefit their own wealth and status. it was beaten into isabela’s head that she would need to make something of herself for the sake of the family if she wanted to be considered useful. growing up, her parents only really noticed her for her looks and how that would benefit their wealth and status. it was beaten into her head that she needed to make something of herself.

maria ran away from home when she was seventeen, leaving a thirteen year old isabela heartbroken and completely alone to their parents’ mercy. the fact that her sister did not think to take her with her is something that the young woman carries with her to this very day. it was the beginning of learning not to trust anyone.

at the age of sixteen, isabela and a few friends snuck away to madrid for the weekend. it was there that she met the duke of galisteo -- handsome, nearly twice her age, incredibly rich, and very very married. the man was absolutely no match for isabela’s charms and took to her instantly. it was an utterly volatile relationship: she always feared the worst from him and he could never offer all himself to her. still, no amount of distance kept the duke away from isabela. it wasn’t before long before he was offering her an opportunity to attend the spanish royal court by his side. of course, isabela said yes. as she packed away for her new adventure, her father gripped his wrist and reminded her of her purpose on this earth.

isabela utterly thrived at the spanish court, making friends as high as the duke of huéscar and foreign princess of spain. darkly seductive and yet charming, she dazzled people after a conversation despite the clear insinuations of why she was there at court. behind those doe eyes and an innocent smile is a serpent. she cannot be trusted by most and people are only shown facades of her. 

tirelessly, isabela tried to wear the duke down to divorce his wife and marry her instead. however, the news that his wife was finally pregnant -- a point of contention between the two -- the duke broke off things with isabela and shattered the heart she never knew she even had.

she no longer had any remote standing at court. but as she was packing up to return to her wretched home, the queen of spain ( the former, not the current ) requested her to be a lady-in-waiting for her. it was a proper title to cover up what she really did for the queen, which was seduce rich and powerful people for information and secrets. it was exactly what she needed to ensure that she would not go home.

everything grew quite chaotic in spain afterwards. first, the crown prince died, causing the princess she considered a friend to flee to her home country with the no-more heir. not so soon afterwards, the king of spain joined his son beyond the grave. suddenly, the queen she worked for was simply an old widow and the next in line -- a woman -- took her place as the spanish monarch. isabela was then assigned to do the same for her as her mother before her.

under the command of the new queen, isabela was sent to bern with the instruction of collecting information of enemy countries. upon her arrival, she met the crown prince anton and was intrigued by him immediately. what started as nothing more than physical began to bloom into authentic feelings. isabela tried with all her might to deny that she was in love with him -- she couldn’t trust again, she couldn’t -- but eventually, she relented to them. after anton’s father was killed in the bern explosions, he proposed to isabela and she readily accepted. this made her not only a wife, but a queen.

her father and step-mother tried to return in isabela’s life, wanting to reap the benefits that she had sown. but no longer living in fear of them, she was a willing participant in having them both executed for “crimes against the queen”. the night after they died was the first night isabela had slept peacefully in all of her nights.

isabela’s reign, so far, is not a smooth one. following in the opinion of their former king, she is not particularly liked by the court or the common people at whole. while the nobles within the castle considered her to be nothing more than a witch that put the king under a spell, the common people found her shameless social climbing to be utterly revolting and hard to connect with. for the most part, isabela tries not to let it get to her but even she has feelings ( no matter how difficult it was to admit ). putting herself under much stress has made her more aloof and made things like having a baby difficult, as made clear by a miscarriage.

she now supports her husband in versailles where the peace talks have resumed after months of rebuilding. recently, she has learned that she is with child once again and while she is normally not one to waste silly time on hope, isabela prays with all of her that this will be a new beginning. for real, this time.

— MODERN VERSE

born in santa fe, isabela was marked by misfortunes from the day she was born. her mother died giving her life – a fact that her father has resented her for from day one. he returned the favor by drinking entirely too much and even going as far to harm the young girl out of anger. 

upon noticing a massive bruise on her arm at the age of nine, isabela’s elementary school counselor alerted the local authorities and she was swiftly taken out of the home and into foster care. she never saw her father again.

unfortunately, foster care proved to be just as bad at times. isabela bounced from home to home. some were okay, others were only in it for the money, and the rest were just as terrible as her father. because of this, she grew up incredibly distrustful and angry towards the world. she isolated herself at school and never had any friends. she didn’t mind it that much and perhaps even preferred it that way.

isabela ran away from home at the age of sixteen and never fucking looked back. after hitchhiking throughout the country, she realized she would need to find a way to keep herself afloat. it was when she found herself in los angeles where she met beau. at first thinking he was an unassuming man with a soft spot of saving her, isabela quickly realized that he wanted to recruit her into his business – a club. with no other options, she accepted.

she began working as a stripper as a way to pay her bills. eventually, she garnered enough popularity with the clients for her mysteriously dark and seductive ways. she was an enigma that no man could put their finger on and yet had such delight in trying. because of that, men would pay thousands a night to see her.

once she was nineteen, a more professional and high-in club offered her a spot in their den. isabela was promised more safety, more money, and more freedom. naturally, she accepted.

beau was not happy. he felt that she owed him her entire career. she obviously didn’t agree. an altercation occurred late one night on the sunset strip when beau waited for isabela’s shift to end and attacked her. the altercation landed isabela in the hospital where it would take her weeks to recover and months for her to heal and get back to work. it was only then that beau considered her free. but at what cost ?

she made a promise to herself that day to stop allowing men like her father, beau, her exes, anyone to treat her like an object. if another man laid his hands on isabela, she’d cut them off.

isabela worked at the club for years, a veteran among a sea of girls who come in and out. since she now has risen through the ranks, she entertains the likes of ceos and the rest of the 1% of california. one night, anton entered the club -- and the rest is history. if anyone would have once told isabela that she would not only fall in love with one of her patrons, but eventually marry and have a child with him too ??? well, she certainly would have laughed in their face.

she quit the job once she officially started dating anton and never once looked back. at times, isabela feels a bit unsure of the completely new life that she is living but she also relished in the feeling of being treated well after so long of the opposite. the only thing that matters to her at this point is her new family and that opinion is unlikely to ever change.